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BOISE Rick Naerebout, Idaho Dairymens Association CEO, told a group of lawmakers and agricultural industry leaders Tuesday that hed hoped the gathering would be more of a celebration.

Most of those gathered, which included U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho; state Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, and leaders from the Idaho Farm Bureau, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, and others, had met the year before to discuss ongoing issues to address the agricultural labor crisis.

Simpson and Guthrie have made some progress in their efforts to address immigration reform and agriculture workforce shortages but their proposals didnt cross the finish line. The theme of the American Business Immigration Coalition roundtable, held Tuesday in Boise, was theres more work to be done and the stakeholders involved will continue to prioritize the issue.

What agriculture needs is a stable, reliable workforce, Simpson said, and I will tell you, this is the No. 1 priority I have over the next two years.

The congressman along with Eastern Washington Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse co-sponsored the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would expand a temporary visa program for seasonal migrant workers to be used year-round; it would also provide an avenue for workers with a history of farm work to gain legal status.

The bill has passed with bipartisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives twice but stalled in the Senate.

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, with Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, had been the lead negotiators in the Senate, NPR reported. Crapos office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Enrique Sanchez, intermountain state director at American Business Immigration Coalition, called on the Senate to do its job and said protecting the agricultural workforce is critical for food security in America. He also said that, as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and son of a migrant farm worker, hes familiar with their struggles. Sanchez said his fathers undocumented status prevented him from being able to return to Mexico for Sanchezs birth.

I share my story to shed light on the experience of farm workers who strive for the American dream, and to remind everyone here that my story is one of hundreds of similar stories in Idaho and across the country, Sanchez said.

Simpson also said there are dire economic impacts to not addressing the immigration issue, such as increasing food prices as more food is imported than produced domestically, and underscored that theres also a humanitarian impact at the center of the issue.

He told a story of a farm worker who had been with a company for 19 years when he was suddenly deported after trying to renew his drivers license.

Somethings wrong with that, Simpson said. Creating that legal workforce, so if youre here working at a dairy or with a farmer or something else, and your mother dies in Honduras, you can actually go home to her funeral and come back. Thats whats important about this.

Idaho state Sen. Jim Guthrie addresses participants in a roundtable discussion at the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry in Boise, Tuesday, April 4, 2023.

At the state level, Guthrie this session sponsored a bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain a limited drivers license as well as a Senate Joint Memorial that called on Congress to tackle immigration reform, including allowing the guest-worker visa program to apply to year-round jobs. Hes been working on the restricted license issue for several years now, and this session, SB 1081 was passed out of committee without a recommendation in an unusual move. It was retained on the Senates calendar and eventually sent back to committee without a debate or vote on the floor.

The memorial, SJM 101, passed the Senate in a 25-10 vote and was referred to the House Agricultural Affairs Committee, where it never had a hearing. He told the Idaho Press that theres likely going to be another effort on the issue in the future.

Guthrie said that as hes worked on the issue, hes found that some of his colleagues in the Statehouse find immigration to be too politically toxic to take on.

If you mention the border, if you mention immigration and, heaven forbid, you mention undocumented immigrants, youll get the door slammed in your face quicker than a vacuum cleaner salesman back in the 70s, Guthrie said. ... But what we found is, an issue like this takes courage, and Im not talking about my courage. Im talking about the courage of the businesses, of the industry.

He talked about the widespread support from those in agriculture, including the Idaho Dairymens Association, the Idaho Farm Bureau and PODER Idaho, which gathered 8,000 signatures of support for the license bill and presented them during the committee hearing.

Pretty soon the ability to deny is not going to be able to resonate any longer, Guthrie said.

Simpson and Guthrie said it will take a large communication and educational effort to get people to understand the severity of the issue and that there is wide popular support for addressing it. Both said they had colleagues who privately expressed support for their proposals but werent willing to vote for them.

Both lawmakers said they felt it was a small but vocal group of people who simply want to deport all immigrants rather than provide avenues for legalization.

Paranoia sells, Guthrie said. If you can instill fear in people, it resonates, it sells. That loud minority voice is instilling fear.

He said it was important to change the narrative.

Congressman Mike Simpson looks on as Idaho state Sen. Jim Guthrie speaks during a roundtable discussion at the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry, Tuesday, April 4, 2023.

Simpson said it wasnt enough for just the leaders of industry groups to write in to legislators expressing support, but every individual farmer or producer needed to do so too.

Alex LaBeau, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, said the issue affects more than just the agricultural industry. He talked about how this idea hit home during a recent visit to New York City.

When you go to the Statue of Liberty and when youre there with your kid and you start to remind them that this country was founded on immigration, LaBeau said. ... the very survival of this country is going to be dependent on immigration reform and our ability to bring people in for the workforce.

Simpson said his path forward is to probably re-introduce his bill and see what the House Judiciary Committee does with it. He said drafting another bill to address some of the committee Republicans concerns would likely cause it to lose the bipartisan support it has.

It has to be bipartisan if its going to pass, he said.

He also said there needs to be a focus on the personal impacts of the lack of immigration reform. His chief of staff, Nikki Wallace, told a story of a 16-year-old girl who became distraught during a discussion in the office on immigration. Wallace said the girl began shaking, and when Wallace asked her privately what the issue was, she said she was worried shed be deported to a country she didnt know anything about.

When were talking about this issue and how can we be successful, weve got to bring the human issue back to it, Wallace said. That is the most uncaring thing, is for this child to be fearful of whats going to happen to her, if shes going to end up in a country that she doesnt know the language or people or anything ... We have to do better for these kids, for people.

Simpson highlighted that the jobs that migrant workers are taking are not ones that Americans are applying for. To participate in the H-2b visa program, employers must ensure that no qualified U.S. workers are available for the opening.

He also said that while people focus on whats going on at the border, its important to remember that many undocumented people are already living and working in communities and the issues are separate.

People need to stop and think about this, Simpson said. These are people that are in our communities that have been for years, that are our neighbors.

Go here to see the original:
Simpson, Guthrie: More work to be done on immigration, farm ... - KPVI News 6

The often overlooked, yet key public official most responsible for quality of life and public safety in thousands of American communities carries a badge, not a briefcase. In old England they were called Shire Reeves (get it?) whose job was to keep the peace on behalf of the king. Today we know them as sheriffs, and under the Biden Border Crisis, they struggle to keep the peace in spite of theking.

FAIR works closely with these law enforcement heroes who see firsthand the adverse impact of open borders. We support them, and there are good reasons you shouldtoo.

Unlike appointed police chiefs who are subject to progressive politics and often capitulate to special interests, the vast majority of the 3,081 of Americas sheriffs are elected and as such, theyre accountable and responsive to citizen concerns, not least of which is rampant illegal immigration. Consequently, as open borders have fueled record numbers of drugs, guns and gangs in recent years, sheriff departments fought back and sought solutions while at the same time, police departments nationwide became increasingly complicit in counter-productive sanctuarypolicies.

One solution was 287(g), a voluntary program named for the section of U.S. Code under which the federal government trains and deputizes local law enforcement agencies to assist with the enforcement of immigration laws. Added into the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act in 1996, it quickly became a force multiplier as it allowed local law enforcement direct access into Homeland Security databases to quickly determine legal status, while creating working relationships with regional ICE offices. For departments that opted in, this productive partnership synergized the data resources of the federal government with the eyes and ears of local sheriffs resulting in more criminal aliens being transferred to ICE and fewer being released into localcommunities.

It works well, so not surprisingly, while 287(g) is still operational, its days may be numbered. Funding is declining, Democrats are putting intense pressure on DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to terminate all the existing agreements (although only Congress can repeal the law itself), and there have been no new Memorandum of Agreements approved since June of 2020, i.e., during the Biden Administration. Worse yet, sheriff departments that utilize the program are under sustained attacks, distractions that Sheriff Chuck Jenkins of Frederick County, Maryland, knows all too well. His department has utilized 287(g) since 2008, passed each years audit with flying colors, and was recognized by ICE as an Exemplary Law Enforcement Partner. Despite those accolades, Jenkins faces regular onslaughts of false allegations by local open borders advocates determined to stop theprogram.

Like most sheriffs, Jenkins tenaciously defends his use of 287(g) because as he says, its the only way I can honor my promise to never put known criminal aliens back onto my streetsand frankly those who want to stop me from doing my job are just a small but very vocal percentage of voters, a claim proven by the fact hes been sheriff for 17 years and recently reelected for a 5th term. There may be some wolves at the door as Jenkins notes, but the voters clearly support his law and order approach to illegal immigration, time andagain.

Jenkins does acknowledge as do most of his fellow sheriffs across the country that while 287(g) is a crucial resource, the ultimate solution is to secure theborder.

But until that happens, sheriffs need encouragement from you to retain 287(g), to apply for it if they dont have it, and to use their influence against state legislatures that want to gut their authority with dangerous sanctuary policies. Given that using 287(g) is both a necessity for public safety, yet one that also becomes a target for radical open borders activists, many elected sheriffs need support from the public to hold the line against the small, but boisterous, minority that opposes any manner of immigration enforcement. Thus, you can bet these local public servants (who are unusually receptive to hearing from citizens) will appreciate a reinforcing thank you for holding the line and facing the heat, while steadfastly trying to keep thepeace.

Read more:
Local Sheriffs Need Your Support - Federation for American Immigration Reform

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A Travis County jury found Army Sgt. Daniel Perry, 33, guilty of murder on Friday, almost three years after he shot and killed Austin protester Garrett Foster.

In 2021 Perry was indicted for murder, aggravated assault and deadly conduct charges for shooting Foster during a July 2020 protest in downtown Austin. The jury also found Perry not guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after deliberating for 17 hours Thursday and Friday following an eight-day trial.

The indictment came one year after Texans took to the streets to protest police brutality following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.

Foster attended an Austin protest on July 25 while Perry was downtown driving for Uber. According to police, Perry stopped his car and honked at people protesting while they walked through the street, blocks from the state Capitol. Seconds later, he drove his car into the crowd, police said.

Foster, who was a 28-year-old white man and an Air Force veteran, had been seen openly carrying an AK-47 rifle at the time, which is legal. There are conflicting accounts as to whether Foster raised the rifle to the driver first but seconds later Perry, who was also legally armed, shot and killed Foster and fled the area, police said. He called the police and reported what happened, claiming he shot in self defense after Foster aimed his weapon at him. Perry is also a white man.

The case sparked debates over Texas stand your ground law, which allows people to use deadly force against someone else if they feel they are in danger. But Perrys social media posts about retaliating against protesters raised questions about the shooters state of mind and his self-defense claim.

The stand your ground law prohibits an individual from arguing self-defense if they provoked a threat from someone else. Witnesses said that Perry seemed to drive threateningly into the crowd before shots were fired, and his actions seemed intentional.

Judge Clifford Brown said the sentencing hearing could happen as early as next Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Perry faces at least five years in prison, but murder convictions can result in a life sentence in Texas.

We cant wait to welcome you Sept. 21-23 to the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, our multiday celebration of big, bold ideas about politics, public policy and the days news all taking place just steps away from the Texas Capitol. When tickets go on sale in May, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

Excerpt from:
U.S. Army sergeant found guilty of murder in 2020 shooting of Austin ... - The Texas Tribune

Georgia public schools now must have a complaint resolution policy that allows challenges to material believed to be harmful to minors, defined by the law as sexual content appealing to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors, which lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors. This definition mirrors the U.S. Supreme Courts definition of obscenity.

When a parent or guardian submits a written complaint about school material, the school principal has seven business days to investigate whether the material is harmful to minors. The decision of whether to remove or restrict student access to the challenged material is left exclusively to the principal, although the school board may conduct a review.

The Georgia Department of Education does not give principals any guidance for determining whether material meets the definition of harmful to minors, and it offers no concrete steps for handling complaints. The departments model complaint resolution policy simply restates the laws requirements.

The law undermines students constitutional right to receive information. In the 1982 case of Island Trees School District v. Pico, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that school libraries afford students an opportunity at self-education and individual enrichment and that public school boards are not free to restrict student access to library books simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books. In the words of the court, the First Amendment rights of students may be directly and sharply implicated by the removal of books from the shelves of a school library.

Yet Georgia now empowers any parent to initiate a process that does exactly that.

Another year-old Georgia law only makes matters worse. Georgias divisive concepts law regulates whether and how teachers can discuss topics like race and ethnicity in the classroom. Both laws deprive students of their First Amendment right to receive information, and the combination has created uncertainty and normalized censorship.

Some teachers have limited or avoided discussing topics like the Civil War or figures like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for fear of putting their jobs at risk. Georgia teachers report teaching in fear of crossing the divisive concept line.

In the just-ended Georgia General Assembly session, lawmakers considered encouraging even more censorship in our schools. Senate Bill 154 would have made school librarians criminally liable for distributing harmful materials to minors. Fortunately, the bill did not pass this year. But it could reappear in 2024.

What would such a law mean for Georgia schools? To see the damage it could do, we need only look one state south.

In 2017, Floridas Legislature passed House Bill 989 that was a precursor to Georgias SB 226. Floridas law lacks detailed guidance for resolving complaints, leading to significant uncertainty among educators about what books they can have in their classrooms, paving the way for self-censorship by teachers that deprives students of their First Amendment right to receive information.

Last year, the Florida lawmakers in addition to passing their own divisive concepts law passed HB 1467, which requires all books in public school media centers, as well as any books assigned or recommended by teachers, be pre-approved as content-appropriate by the schools media specialist. A public educator who allows students access to unapproved materials may be subject to felony prosecution.

Schools are unequipped to shoulder the administrative burden of this year-old law. For example, in Duval County, Florida, a mere 54 media specialists are responsible for vetting 1.6 million titles in the countys 200 schools. Fear of criminal consequences and a backlog of classroom materials waiting to be reviewed has led Florida teachers to box up and donate entire classroom libraries.

SB 154 would have similar consequences in Georgia. The proposal which remains on file for the 2024 General Assembly session would expose educators to potential arrest and prosecution for simply having books and resources in their classrooms, without any real, practicable guidance on which materials are allowed and which are not.

Georgia must learn from the mistakes weve already made by following in Floridas unconstitutional footsteps. Criminalizing teachers well-intentioned conduct and impeding students access to educational information would put us on a path to even more censorship in our schools.

Continue reading here:
Opinion: A year later, book banning law normalizes school censorship - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

We Americans have been paying the feds to silence ourselves and interfere in our own elections, under a government-led Disinformation-Industrial Complex that has been brought into clear view through the yeoman efforts of a single billionaire entrepreneur, journalists, and activists, red state attorneys' general, and the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Perhaps because of this exposure, one of the federal agencies most integral to this byzantine censorship regime has been covering up its tracks.

Yet during a recent hearing of the House Appropriations Committee's Homeland Security subcommittee with the leader of said agency, the agency's scandalous behavior was not a core focus of the discussion.

One subcommittee member largely led the questioning touching on CISA's speech policing. Every member should have.

There was little indication appropriators intended to leverage the power of the purse to compel the agency to cease its censorship effortsthat is, to defund the censorship regime, and perhaps to dismantle it outright.

If Republicans are committed to combatting the ongoing assault against the core of our First Amendmentpolitical speechwhich could worsen as the 2024 election approaches, it is incumbent upon them to take a significantly more aggressive posture in defense of our liberties.

As disaffected liberal journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, as well as Sen. (and former Missouri Attorney General) Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, and Missouri Special Assistant Attorney General D. John Sauer all detailed in recent Weaponization Subcommittee hearings, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has served as a key cog in the Disinformation-Industrial Complex.

That complex, linking the administrative state to Big Tech and myriad often government-funded and ex-government employee-staffed "counter-disinformation" organizations, has created a moral panic over "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" (MDM), which it has tied to threats to public health and safety as a pretext to censoring unauthorized opinions.

The Disinformation-Industrial Complex's stated purpose is the protection of The People. The actual purpose is the protection of The Ruling Regime, through narrative control.

The plaintiffs in Missouri and Louisiana et al. v. Biden, who testified recently before the Weaponization Subcommittee, describe CISA as the "nerve center" of the federal government's censorship activities.

They allege that the Biden administration cajoled and colluded with social media platforms to "suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content...under the Orwellian guise of halting" MDM, violating the First Amendment and other laws in the process.

Among the defendants in the case are numerous Biden administration officials, including the president himself, former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, and CISA Director Jen Easterly.

As a measure of her perspective on speech, Easterly has previously asserted that "the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure," and has pledged that CISA will "work with our partners in the private sector," including social media companies, "to ensure that the American people have the facts that they need to help protect our critical infrastructure."

CISA has operated accordingly, expanding its definition of "infrastructure" to encompass virtually everything; its focus has shifted from "foreign interference" to domestic Wrongthinkcodified in transitioning its Countering Foreign Influence Task Force into its MDM teamand its mandate is now suppressing such Wrongthink if it has a nexus to "infrastructure."

This is the logic by which the Americans, myself included, who raised issues about the integrity of the 2020 electionand have thereby been treated by CISA as a threat to election "infrastructure"found ourselves censored.

A March 7, 2023 filing in Missouri and Louisiana et al. v. Biden, synthesizing voluminous discovery material and depositions from parties critical of the censorship regime, details CISA's centrality to the federal government's censorship efforts.

The filing records that CISA officials:

Much of the MDM these parties have combated concerns elections and aspects of the Chinese coronavirus, including information known by authorities to be true, if it undermined their preferred narratives. Evidence suggests CISA has also focused on "financial misinformation and disinformation," as well as offending content around the Russo-Ukrainian War. CISA has even pushed for censoring "supposed disinformation about CISA itself," according to the filing.

The day that filing hit the docket, Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, reported that in the prior week CISA had purged its website of references to its domestic censorship work.

Just over two weeks later, on March 24, Taibbi and journalist Susan Schmidt reported that CISA had several months earlier quietly disbanded its advisory "Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation & Disinformation" subcommittee.

Four days after that, CISA Director Easterly came before the House Appropriations Committee, asking for a 22 percent increase in CISA's budget for fiscal year 2024 to $3.1 billion. As the chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), noted in prepared remarks, CISA's budget has already increased nearly 44 percent over the three preceding years.

Despite this ballooning agency budget, requests for still more money, and the well-documented ways such funds have fueled America's public-private censorship regimea conspiracy to violate the First Amendment that constitutes taxpayer-funded election interferenceCISA's speech policing garnered little scrutiny.

Rep. Michael Cloud's (R-Tex.) questioning of Easterly on her agency's role in the Disinformation-Industrial Complex was an exception. To Cloud's questions, Easterly responded that "We don't censor anything...we don't flag anything to social media organizations." She added: "We are focused on building resilience to foreign influence and disinformation."

By contrast, as Benz's organization summarized its extensive findings about CISA, this "agency in charge of securing elections is also in charge of censoring elections."

Two days later, before the Weaponization subcommittee, Louisiana Attorney General Landry would testify that CISA "aims to protect our collective consciousness from independent thought and inquiry at the individual level."

Neither CISA nor any government agency should be in this business whatsoever.

Nor should any government agency be weaponized against the public, in violation of our most fundamental rights.

Some House Republicans have acknowledged this in raising the threat of withholding funding for the FBI's new glitzy headquarters.

But efforts to leverage the power of the purse must extend far beyond any one agency, because our liberties are under virtually government-wide assault.

Why should Americans pay a single cent more for our own subjugation?

Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He also contributes to The Federalist, the New York Post, The Epoch Times, and other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Taxpayer Dollars Must Not Fund the Government-Led Censorship Regime | Opinion - Newsweek