FBI's updated report now shows dramatic rise in hate crimes

Hate crimes against Asian Americans are is rising, according to FBI data.

In a new report with updated data, the FBI reissued a new report that shows hate crimes rising to its second highest level since it began collecting hate crime data in 1990.

Hate crimes in the United States surged 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the majority based on racial, ethnic and ancestral bias, the FBI said on Monday. Most disturbingly,  hate crimes against Asians rose 167%

“Preventing, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes are top priorities for the Justice Department, and reporting is key to each of those priorities.," said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a statement."The FBI’s supplemental report demonstrates our unwavering commitment to work with our state and local partners to increase reporting and provide a more complete picture of hate crimes nationwide."

A flawed report released last year showed a drop in hate crime drawing heavy criticism from civil rights organizations. The FBI admitted that a switch to a new data system meant  52% of the country's jurisdictions, including some large cities and states, did not meet the reporting deadline resulting in lower total numbers nationally.

The updated report which includes data from more jurisdictions, including New York City and Los Angeles, show that reported hate crime incidents rose to 9,065 in 2021 from 8,120 in 2020.

Officials say the top five hate crime categories reported for 2021 were anti-Black, anti-white, anti-gay male, anti-Jewish and anti-Asian.

The bureau said 64.5% of victims in 2021 were targeted because of their race, ethnicity or ancestry bias while 15.9% were targeted because of sexual-orientation bias and 14.1% were targeted because of religious bias.

For its supplemental report, FBI officials said they were able to retroactively include crime data from some of the country's largest cities that had not yet made the switch to the new reporting format.

That meant that some large cities such as Los Angeles and New York City are now included in its hate crime report, which compares trends between 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, Chicago was able to provide two quarters worth of data for the report.

While the NIBRS 2021 hate crime dataset reported 7,262 incidents and 8,673 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity, the supplemental hate crime dataset reports involve 10,840 incidents and 12,411 related offenses. The supplemental reporting figure is higher as it represents a larger population as more agencies were able to submit via the SRS system. (Due to rounding, percentage breakdowns may not add up to 100 percent.) 

The FBI defines hate crime as a criminal offense "motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity."

The bureau’s annual report is widely used by law enforcement, policymakers, experts and community leaders as a broad measure of hate crime in America. 

Victims of Hate Crime Incidents 

• Over 10,500 single-bias incidents involved 12,411 victims.  
  
  • A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that
  • 64.5% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias,
  • 15.9% were targeted because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias,
  • 14.1% were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias,  
  • 3.2% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias,  
  • 1.4% were targeted because of the offenders’ disability bias, and  
  • 1.0% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender bias. 
• There were 310 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 411 victims.  

Offenses by Crime Category 

• Of the 8,327 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in the updated 2021 dataset,  
  • 43.2% were intimidation,  
  • 35.5% were simple assault, and  
  • 20.1% were aggravated assault.  
  • 19 rapes and 18 murders were reported as hate crimes.  
  • The remaining 70 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons were reported in the category of other.  
• Of the 3,817 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 71.2% were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.  
• 267 additional offenses were classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution, and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.
  

President Biden has made fighting hate crimes, particularly those assaults against Asian Americans, one of his administration's priorities.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has led a concerted effort to gather more accurate data on hate crimes, including more translations services in Asian languages and communications and more outreach and training for law enforcement agencies.

"We are continuing to work with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to increase the reporting of hate crime statistics to the FBI," says Gupta. "Hate crimes and the devastation they cause communities have no place in this country. The Justice Department is committed to every tool and resource at our disposal to combat bias-motivated violence in all its forms.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

DOJ announces grants, programs and policies to fight hate

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A year ago, President Biden signed the Hate Crimes Act witnessed by members of Congress and Vice President Kamala Harris.

As attacks against Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders continue to rise and white supremacists grow bolder to impose their racist views on the rest of America, the US Department  of Justice announced Friday a series of actions to deter and confront hate crimes and other bias-related incidents.

“Throughout our history, and to this day, hate crimes have a singular impact because of the terror and fear they inflict on entire communities,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland at an event at the DOJ commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Attorney General’s memorandum on improving the Department’s efforts to combat hate crimes and hate incidents and the enactment of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes and Khalid Jabara-Heather Heyer NO HATE Acts. 

“No one in this country should have to fear the threat of hate fueled violence," Garland said. "The Justice Department will continue to use every resource at its disposal to confront unlawful acts of hate, and to hold accountable those who perpetrate them.”

The Hate Crimes Act anniversary and the DOJ's announcement comes days after President Biden and Vice President Harris met with scores of AANHPI leaders at the White House to celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month and the hate-inspired mass shootings in Buffalo, Dallas and Southern California.

The anniversary of the Hate Crimes Act and the DOJ announcement was welcomed by the AANHPI members of Congress.

"We know that a lot of work remains. Anti-Asian hate is still on the rise, and we just witnessed a horrific domestic terrorist attack against the Black community in Buffalo last week," said Hawaii's Senator Mazie Hirono. "We must reaffirm our commitment to combatting the discrimination, prejudice, and racism that communities of color, the LGBTQ+ community, women and more, continue to face. Our work is not finished until everyone in this country is safe, welcomed, and respected.”

The Justice Department's actions include: 

• Issuing new guidance with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) aimed at raising awareness of hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Releasing grant solicitations for programs to create state-run hate crime reporting hotlines and to support community-based approaches to prevent and address hate crimes; and
• Hiring the Department’s inaugural Language Access Coordinator.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Deputy Attorney Lisa O. Monaco, Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta were joined by family members of Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer, members of Congress; Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community-based organizations; civil rights organizations; and law enforcement leaders.

“We have seen a spike in hate crimes against many communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, individuals are still scared to leave their homes – not only because of worry that they may contract the virus, but out of fear for their physical safety. This is unacceptable,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who serves as Co-Chair of the White House Initiative and President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

As set forth in the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, the Justice Department and HHS announced the joint issuance of guidance aimed at raising awareness of hate crimes during the COVID–19 pandemic. A recent study found that a third of Americans are not even aware that there is a wave of anti-Asian incidents, these past two years ince the pandemic began.

This guidance provides an overview of the rise of hate crimes and hate incidents during the pandemic, including a surge of hate crimes and hate incidents against Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities, and several steps that law enforcement, government officials, and others can take to raise awareness of increased hate crimes and incidents, and to use increased awareness as a tool for the prevention of and response to hate crimes.

The Justice Department also announced the release of $10 million in grant solicitations in newly created grant programs to address hate crimes and hate incidents. 

This includes solicitations for grants authorized under the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act programs. Through these programs, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) will provide up to $5 million in grant funds for the Bureau of Justice Statistics to support the transition of state and local law enforcement agencies to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and reporting of hate crimes through NIBRS, and for the Office of Victims of Crime (OVC) to fund states to establish and run state-run reporting hotlines for victims of hate crimes. 

OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) also released $5 million in grant solicitations under the Community-Based Approaches to Prevent and Address Hate Crimes Program, which supports community-based organizations and civil rights groups with implementing comprehensive approaches to promote community awareness and preparedness, increase victim reporting, strengthen community resiliency, and improve responses to hate crimes. 

The Justice Department announced that Ana Paula Noguez Mercado will join the Office for Access to Justice, where she will serve as the Department’s first-ever Language Access Coordinator. Language access is a key barrier to the reporting of hate crimes, and the Language Access Coordinator will help improve knowledge, use, and expansion of the Department of Justice’s language resources.

Finally, the Justice Department announced that Saeed Mody will serve as the Department’s new Anti-Hate Crimes Resources Coordinator, after the first ever Coordinator was recently named Director of the newly restored Office of Access to Justice. 

Over the last year, the Justice Department has taken a number of other actions in response to a rise in hate crimes and hate incidents. Some of these actions include:

• Designating a Deputy Associate Attorney General as the Justice Department’s first-ever Anti-Hate Crimes Resources Coordinator;
• Designating the chief of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division to serve in role of facilitating the expedited review of hate crimes;
• Going above and beyond the directive under the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act to expedite the review of certain hate crimes by including additional types of hate crimes;
• Designating at least one Assistant U.S. Attorney as a Civil Rights Coordinator in every U.S. Attorneys’ Office (USAO);
• Vigorously investigating and prosecuting hate crimes - since January 2021, the department has charged more than 40 defendants in over 30 cases and obtained more than 35 convictions of defendants charged with bias-motivated crimes;
• Elevating civil rights violations and hate crimes enforcement for prioritization among the FBI’s 56 field offices;
• Facilitating FBI-hosted regional conferences across the country with state and local law enforcement agencies regarding federal civil rights and hate crimes laws; to encourage reporting; strengthen relationships between law enforcement and local civil rights organizations; and build trust within the diverse communities they serve;
• Launching an FBI-led National Anti-Hate Crimes Campaign involving all 56 FBI field offices to encourage reporting. The campaign includes outdoor advertising, billboards, and radio streaming in addition to social media;
• Ensuring that all states have now become certified for participation in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting National Incident Based Reporting System;
• Revitalizing the Community Relations Service (CRS) by, among other things, seating newly-confirmed director, Paul Monteiro;
• Adding information to the Department of Justice’s website on reporting hate crimes in 24 languages, including 18 of the most frequently spoken AAPI languages in the United States;
• Creating an online toolkit that provides USAO Civil Rights Coordinators with customizable community outreach materials and ready access to other resources and training;
• Piloting a new outreach training called United Against Hate help improve the reporting of hate crimes by teaching community members how to identify, report, and help prevent hate crimes and to provide an opportunity for trust building between law enforcement and communities;
• Developing additional resources to help empower local officials, community leaders, and residents to address and devise community responses to hate crimes and incidents, including a toolkit to address hate crimes and incidents against Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, which has been translated into Arabic, Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional), Farsi, Hindi, Korean, Urdu, Tagalog, and Vietnamese;
• Releasing close to $21 million in grant funding through these programs to state and local partners to investigate and prosecute hate crimes and assist hate crime victims, including through the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program to support state, local, and tribal law enforcement and prosecution agencies in their efforts to investigate and prosecute hate crimes and in their outreach to and education of the public, victims, and others on hate crimes; and
• With the Department of Education, issuing facts sheets addressing harassment and discrimination in school, including harassment based on COVID-19 related issues, harassment of LGBTQI+ students, and discrimination based on national origin and immigration status.

"Of course, these resources are not useful if they cannot be accessed by the communities they are intended to help. That is why the department has focused on translating the resources that are most relevant to communities impacted by hate," said Associate Attorney General Gupta. "For example, translating the Civil Rights Division’s online reporting portal into at least 24 languages, including eighteen of the most frequently spoken AAPI languages in the United States. 

"But translation alone is not enough," she continued. "We have also sought to increase cultural competency both within the department and among our state, local, territorial and Tribal partners through trainings and other resources. How we engage with communities impacted by hate crimes can be crucial to establishing a lasting relationship of trust."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Justice Department files lawsuit saying Texas' redistricting plan that discriminates against voters of color

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Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta announces the DOJ lawsuit vs. Texas redistricting plan.

Texas' plan for redrawing Congressional district boundaries is being challenged by the Department of Justice in a lawsuit filed Monday that claims minority voters will be denied equal opportunity to seek representation in political offices.

"Texas’ 2021 redistricting plans were enacted through a rushed process, with minimal opportunity for public comment, without any expert testimony, and with an overall disregard for the massive minority population growth in Texas over the last decade," said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a press conference.

Texas’ population grew by 4 million people from 2010 to 2020, and 95% of that growth came from minority populations. As a result of the population growth, the state gained two new Congressional seats, both of which were designed to give White voters a majority," said Gupta, one of the highest ranking Indian Americans in the Biden administration.

"Despite this significant increase in the number and proportion of eligible Latino and Black voters in Texas, the newly enacted redistricting plans will not allow minority voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice," said Gupta. "Instead, our investigation determined that Texas’ redistricting plans will dilute the increased minority voting strength that should have developed from these significant demographic shifts."

The complaint asks the court to prohibit Texas from conducting elections under the challenged plans and asks the court to order Texas to devise and implement new redistricting plans that comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The complaint also asks the court to establish interim plans before the 2022 Midterm elections pending a lawful state redistricting, a process that could extend beyond the Midterms.

The DOJ suit is the second legal challenge to Texas attempt to minimize the impact of voters of color. The Fair Maps Texas Action Committee filed a legal challenge on behalf of a coalition of voting and civil-rights groups and individual voters, including the Asian American Legal and Education Fund (AALDEF).

The AANHPI population is the fastest-growing racial or ethnic voting group in the state, according to the Census. Over the past decade, AANHPI voters have increased from 950,000 in 2010 to nearly 1.6 million in 2020.

“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are the fastest growing racial group in America and especially in Texas. Together with their Black and Latino neighbors, AAPIs have already demonstrated that they vote together. It is clear that these new legislative district lines were drawn to intentionally divide these rapidly growing AAPI communities and prevent them and other communities of color from electing candidates of their choice. This continues Texas' shameful history of discriminating against voters of color,” Jerry Vattamala, Director of the Democracy Program with AALDEF.

Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Texas has not gone a single decade without a federal court finding that the state had violated federal protections for voters of color. 

In 2021, Texas lawmakers’ voting plans for State House districts (H2316), State Senate districts (S2168), and Congressional districts (C2193), repeat the Legislature's past mistakes. The complaint alleges that each plan discriminates against voters of color by failing to create coalition districts mandated by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, intentionally dividing voters of color into several districts, and otherwise diluting the voting power of people of color. 

As the DOJ complaint documents, in areas like Fort Bend County, a diverse region near Houston, Texas, AAPI communities are cracked “with almost surgical precision,” depriving them of an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.

In Congressional District 22 where a growing and active AAPI electorate lives in suburban Houston, an Indian American candidate, Sri Preston Kulkarni, almost defeated the Republican incumbent. Under the new map, the AAPI neighborhoods have been divided up into several districts or added to larger rural districts where White voters are the majority.

“These lines are essentially silencing” minority voters, Vattamala asserted.

“Surgically removing these communities and adding them with White, rural counties to essentially dilute their vote.”

“This brazen attack on the voting rights of people of color in Texas is a fundamental attack on democracy and violates the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution," said AALDEF's Vattamala. "All Texans should be appalled at these blatantly discriminatory district lines.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

Embattled Vanita Gupta approved as Associate Attorney General for DOJ

Vanita Gupta is the new Associate Attorney Genereal.

One Republican Senator bucked her GOP colleagues and just like that, Vanita Gupta's appointment was approved to become the Associate Attorney General of the Department of Justice.

Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the lone Republican to vote for the Indian American civil rights attorney

Gupta becomes the first woman of color and the first Asian American to hold the third-in-command for the Justice Department.

“Not only is Ms. Gupta the first woman of color to ever be nominated to the position, she is the first civil rights attorney ever to be nominated to the position — the third-ranking official in the Justice Department,” said Senate  Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

Vice President Kamala Harris was present in case her vote was needed to break a tie between the GOP and Democrats. 

As soon as Gupta was nominated, conservative groups and Senate Republicans have been attacking her as a "radical" in attempt to derail Biden's nomination, even though all the major law enforcement groups endorsed Gupta.

Gupta previously was the head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration. 

But Murkowski, who voted to convict Donald Trump in the former president's second impeachment trial, voted for the embattled Gupta.

According to Politico, among the issues Murkowski discussed with Gupta was domestic violence and sexual assault, particularly against Native women — a major priority for the Alaska Republican.

“I felt that I was speaking to a woman who had not only committed her professional life to try to get the base of these injustices, to try to not just direct a little bit of money, put a program in place, and walk away and call it a day,” Murkowski told Politico. “But to try to truly make a difference.”

Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said:
"Her confirmation could not come at a more significant time as our nation continues to grapple with a multitude of civil rights issues – from police brutality targeting Black and Brown communities to the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes we have seen throughout the pandemic. 

"We need a Department of Justice that understands the needs and experiences of communities of color and works to protect them from violence and disenfranchisement," said Chu.

Who are the Asian Americans likely to be on Joe Biden's Cabinet?

Tammy Duckworth was sworn in by then-Vice President Joe Biden.

OPINION:

Between now and Jan. 20 when Presidnt-elect Joe Biden will be installed, he will be  building his Cabinet, a cohort of trusted advisors. One thing for certain, his Cabinet will be a lot more diverse than Donald Trump's. Biden said that his administration will be made up of men and women who look like America.

There are several Asian Americans who might find a spot in Biden's inner circcle.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: The Illinois senator was among the finalists for Biden's choices for Vice President. Duckworth, a decorated veterans of the Iraq war, has a compelling story as an immigrant.. She was a  helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army, losing both her legs when her copter was shot down.  Before turning to politics, she headed the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs. While serving in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, she built a reputation as a strong advocate for veteran rights. She would fit in as head of Veterans Affairs or Secretary of Defense.

DR. VIVEK MURTHY: As soon as Biden's won the majority of electoral college votes, one of his first actions was to name the Indian America to head his coronavirus task force. Murthy served as the U.S. Surgeon General in the President Barack Obama administration so he and Biden already have a working relationship.

JULIE SU: California’s current Sec. of Labor and Workforce Development and a former California labor commissioner, she also served as litigation director at Advancing Justice L.A. and has spent 17 years of her career as a civil rights lawyer with a focus on protecting low-wage workers and immigrant victims of crime and human trafficking. She'd would make a good Secretary of Labor.

ARUN MAJUMDAR: Majumdar was the first director of DOE's flagship agency for innovation, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. A Stanford University engineering professor, he was named Tuesday to lead the Biden transition team for the agency. Observers said he would bring both scientific credibility and political expertise as the Secretary of Energy, which would be high profile position in a Biden administration's plans to transition to clean energy.

NEAL KATYAL: Katyal, who is currently professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center, served briefly as Acting Solicitor General of the United States during the Obama administration.  He also held the position while the Trump administration was trying to find their own person. Most recently, the Indian American has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration policies. If he were to lead the Department of Justice, he would have a massive job of rebuilding a culture utterly destroyed by Trump and AG William Barr.

VANITA GUPTA: Another possible candidate for the DOJ or Homeland Security, Gupta left the public sector when Trump came into office, Gupta has kept her finger on the pulse of policy making, fighting against Trump's egregious violations of civil rights, as CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In the Obama presidency, she served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

ANDREW YANG: By the time Yang left the Democratic primary campaign for POTUS, Biden began using Yang's vocabulary about a "third industrial revolution." Yang also was very active campaigning for Biden, attracting and exciting the young voters least likely to vote. Biden and Yang were often seen talking one-on-one after the debates. Biden reportedly told Yang that there would be a position for Yang in a Biden administration. A new cabinet position might be created to fit Yang's forward-looking ideas. Department of Innovation & Technology, anybody?

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this is news sprinkled with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to formulate their own positions.

AAPI leaders mourn passing of Congressman John Lewis

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Rep. John Lewis, center, wore a lei in a commemorative crossing of the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

By Louis Chan
ASAM NEWS

Asian Americans reacted with both sadness and admiration to the death of Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights icon who made fighting for immigrants one of his priorities.

Lewis served in Congress from 1987 until his death yesterday from cancer at the age of 80. He helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington with five other civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, James Farmer, A Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. With Lewis’ passing, all of the Big six have now died.

He is also one of the 13 original Freedom Riders, a group of seven Whites and six Blacks, who rode from Washington, DC to New Orleans in 1961 to protest segregation.

In 1965, Lewis lead 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. It would be a day that would become known as Bloody Sunday. Troopers moved in with tear gas as the group stopped and prayed. Lewis’ head would end up bloodied and fractured.

“I thought I saw death,” he said just this past August at the convention of the Asian American Journalists Association while recalling Bloody Sunday. “I thought I was going to die.”

A movement had begun several months ago to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of Lewis.

Vanita Gupta, an Indian American and president of the  Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said naming the bridge is one way to honor Lewis. She says, however, the bigger fight is to restore the Voting Rights Act.

It was a direct message to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

“Do not utter a word about Cong. Lewis so long as you hold hostage HR4, the bill which passed the House in December that restores the Voting Rights Act,” Gupta tweeted to McConnell.

In a 2015 guest post on AsAmNews, Rep Mark Takano (D-CA), recalled on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday a little known chapter of the civil rights movement.

“I was delighted to see that Senator Mazie Hirono and Congressman Mark Takai from Hawaii brought a reminder of our commitment to the civil rights movement – lei’s,” wrote Takano. “These lei’s served as an important reminder of our community’s solidarity with the civil rights movement, much like the lei’s that Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis wore during the third march to Montgomery in late March 1965. A little known fact is that the lei’s that were provided that day were actually a gift from Reverend Abraham Akaka, a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, and the brother of future United States Senator Daniel Akaka.”

During his Q&A at the AAJA convention, Lewis repeated a phrase he said was uttered to him by both Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

He said both “encouraged me to get into good trouble, necessary trouble. I’ve been getting into trouble ever since.”

“Thank you for showing the world what good trouble looks like,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris last night in response to Lewis' death.

“We learned from civil rights giant Congressman John Lewis that we have “a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, to speak up, speak out and get in good trouble. In honor of his legacy, we will continue on this path of good trouble,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, one of two Muslim American women ever elected in Congress.

In 2013, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund awarded Lewis its Justice in Action Award.

Lewis has never forgotten the Asian American community and other immigrant communities.

In 2013, he took part in a pro-immigration reform rally which ended with the arrest of 200 protesters.

Asian Americans are often forgotten in the struggle for civil rights, but Lewis was not among them.

“John Lewis was a giant. A civil rights legend. A leader in the halls of Congress. And a moral voice for the whole nation.””Having the opportunity to serve with him was one of the great honors of my life,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of two Muslim American women serving in Congress.

Over 400 religious, civil rights organizations call for police reformSCREEN

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Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and over 400 other civil rights organizations Monday called on congressional leadership to swiftly rectify the legacy of white supremacy and anti-black racism that has led to police violence against Black people across the United States.

“People in Minnesota and around the country are rightfully angered and devastated by the police killing of George Floyd. The problem of state violence against communities of color, particularly Black people, has a long history in this country that we have not fully confronted or addressed," said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

In the Obama administration, Gupta headed up civil rights enforcement for the Department of Justice.

The list of supporting groups included almost two dozen AAPI organization: the Japanese American Citizens League, the oldest AAPI civil rights group,Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) and the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center

"Federal statutory reforms are urgently needed on a range of policing issues, including use of force, police accountability, racial profiling, militarization, data collection, and training," said the letter's signers.

“Now is the time for Congress to pass meaningful police reform legislation. While we appreciate hearings and resolutions, we need comprehensive measures to happen. We need Congress to truly step up to the plate and protect Black communities from the systemic perils of over policing, police brutality, misconduct, and harassment, and end the impunity in which officers operate in taking the lives of Black people. It is your moral and ethical duty to ensure Black people and communities are free from the harm and threats from law enforcement and to curtail state sanctioned police violence and militarized police responses,” the groups said in the letter.

The signers requested a meeting with congressional leadership to discuss urgently needed reforms that ensure police officers live up to their oath to protect and serve all people in the United States.

The federal reforms addressed in the letter include: 

• Require a federal standard that use of force be reserved for only when necessary as a last resort after exhausting reasonable options, and incentivize states to implement this standard; require the use of de-escalation techniques, and the duty to intervene; ban the use of force as a punitive measure or means of retaliation against individuals who only verbally confront officers, or against individuals who pose a danger only to themselves; and require all officers to accurately report all uses of force;
• Prohibit all maneuvers that restrict the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain, including neck holds, chokeholds, and similar excessive force, deeming the use of such force a federal civil rights violation;
• Prohibit racial profiling with robust data collection on police-community encounters and law enforcement activities. Data should capture all demographic categories and be disaggregated;
• Eliminate federal programs that provide military equipment to law enforcement;
• Prohibit the use of no-knock warrants, especially for drug searches;
• Change the 18 U.S.C. Sec. 242 mens rea requirement from willfulness to recklessness, permitting prosecutors to successfully hold law enforcement accountable for the deprivation of civil rights and civil liberties;
• Develop a national public database that would cover all police agencies in the United States and its territories; and,
• End the qualified immunity doctrine that prevents police from being held legally accountable when they break the law.

The complete letter and list of signatories are available here.

Kamala Haris wants Facebook to clamp down on misleading GOP advertisements about the Census

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Kamala Harris wants Facebook to take stronger measures against misleading ads.

ASAM NEWS

US Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) took Facebook executives to task over misleading 2020 Census advertisements on its site.
In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg on March 5, Harris criticized the company for its “failure to enforce [its] policies banning misinformation.”

Facebook had run “thousands” of ads from Donald Trump Make America Great Again, a fundraising arm of President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, asking users to take the “Official 2020 Congressional District Census.”

“President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today. We need to hear from you before the most important election in American history,” the ad said. It then asked users to “respond NOW” and text “TRUMP to 8022,” according to The New York Times.

But instead of being taken to the U.S. Census Bureau government site, users were instead redirected to a Trump campaign page with “misleading information on how to take the census,” including dates, times, locations, and methods, according to Harris’s letter. The census had not begun to survey the public at the time.

The ads were still approved and ran for “hours,” even after the company was made aware of the misinformation by Vanita Gupta, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Harris is just one of the Democrats criticizing Facebook for running the misleading ads. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called it “a robust unacceptable interference in the census” in a press conference Thursday, The Hill reported.

In response, a Facebook spokesman replied that they received Harris’s letter and “look forward to clarifying the policies Facebook has in place to prevent confusion around the official U.S. census.”

The advertisements have since been removed, but Harris is concerned that the company’s initial approval of the ads is a signal that Facebook is “now backing away from full enforcement of those policies.” Such misinformation in future elections could result in voter disenfranchisement.

It is also a concern for the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, which the U.S. Census Bureau has recognized as difficult to count, due to language barriers and the “large number of first-generation immigrants, estimated to be at least two-thirds of the over 22 million AAPI in the US,” according to AAPI Data.

There’s already confusion, worry, and lack of knowledge about the census, which is why activist groups are taking it upon themselves to educate communities on the benefits of taking the census, including how the information may be used.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus member An Le had expressed concern about non-English speakers, particularly in California, who would fall through the cracks without appropriate outreach and information.

Gupta echoed the concerns of Harris and other civil rights leaders in a recent statement:

“While we’re gratified that Facebook shut down Trump’s attempt to sow confusion about how and when to participate in the 2020 census, it’s disturbing that the ads weren’t immediately removed,” Gupta said. “We will continue to hold Facebook accountable to enforce it. Nothing should distract from making sure everyone gets counted.”

House members strengthen Voting Rights Act

TWITTER

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, praised the passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

In a mostly party-line vote, Friday (Dec. 6) the House of Representatives passed legislation 228-187 that would strengthen voting rights, particularly for people of color, who had been denied their right to vote in the 2016 and 2018 elections.

The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019, House Resolution 4 (H.R.4) will restore one of the most powerful provisions of the original 1965 Voting Rights Act,  making it more difficult for states to discriminate against voters of color, and give the federal government a stronger ability to take action against states with a history of discrimination.

"This is particularly important for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who are the fastest growing racial population in the United States but continue to face barriers at the polls due to voter suppression laws," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

"So we are fighting back today with the Voting Rights Advancement Act. This law finally updates the VRA – which used to be one of the most bipartisan and popular laws – to restore the Department of Justice’s ability to block states with a history of voter suppression from creating another era where minorities are silenced.”

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was weakened considerably by the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder that required Congress to create an updated coverage formula to determine if the Federal government can intervene in a state’s election laws. The majority of the Justices ruled that the original act no longer applied because of the success of the 1965 law in forcing states to end racist voting restrictions.

Since that Supreme Court decision, nearly two dozen states have implemented restrictive voter ID laws and created obstacles for people to vote. 

This bill addresses that by developing an updated process to determine which states and localities with a history of voting rights violations over the past 25 years must preclear election changes with the Department of Justice. This bill also increases transparency by requiring reasonable public notice for voting changes, and allows the Attorney General to request the presence of federal observers anywhere in the country where a serious threat to voter access and fair elections exist. 

The Voting Rights Advancement Act also ensures that decreasing the operating days or hours of a polling place during the early voting period is classified as a discriminatory practice, as does making changes to voter registration lists in jurisdictions with a racial or language minority group making up twenty percent or more of the population. 

The court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder ushered in an era of new voter suppression laws across the country.

“States that used to be covered by preclearance, and even those with less deplorable records, took the Shelby decision as a signal to enact voting restrictions with impunity, and the flood gates were opened to voting discrimination unlike anything the country had seen in a generation. A squall of voting restrictions was advanced on a national scale, including: photo ID laws, restraints on voter registration, voter purges, cuts to early voting, restrictions on the casting and counting of absentee and provisional ballots, documentary proof of citizenship requirements, polling place closures and consolidations, and criminalization of acts associated with registration or voting,” writes the ACLU.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was a bipartisan bill and passed with a large majority. In stark contrast, the vote on Friday was highly partisan. All Democrats voting for the VRAA, but pnly one Republican crossed party lines to vote for H.R.4. Republicans for the most part hid behind the argument of so-called states rights. 

The resolution now goes to the Senate where, if they continue to put party above country, the Republicans will likely allow it to die.

“The passage of H.R. 4 in the House of Representatives today brings us one step closer to restoring the Voting Rights Act and undoing the tremendous damage of Shelby," said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "We commend the House for passing this critical legislation and urge Majority Leader (Mitch) McConnell to bring it up for a vote in the Senate. The VRAA is too important – and the right to vote is too fundamental — to end up buried in the McConnell legislative graveyard.”

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