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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL/KGET) Ahead of a key vote to approve a single-payer, state-run health care system in California, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party is preparing to take away party endorsements from Assembly members who reject the proposal.

Progressive Caucus Chairman and California Democratic Party Executive Board Member Amar Shergill confirmed Thursday the group will take steps to make sure members who vote no on the legislation will not be endorsed by the California Democratic Party for the upcoming election.

No endorsement from the party could mean a major lack of activism, support and funding for those seeking reelection.

Any Assembly member that thinks they can ignore the party, ignore labor, ignore people, vote against us and then still get the endorsement might find they have a tougher reelection battle than they thought, Shergill said.

In order to be endorsed by the Democratic Party, delegates in each district must reach a strong consensus to support the endorsement. Shergill said there are many districts around the state where the Progressive Caucus has more than 40% of the delegates that are not going to endorse someone who fails to support CalCare.

The pre-endorsement process begins Feb. 5, just days after the Assembly is poised to hold a floor vote on the proposal Assembly Bill 1400 Monday.

AB 1400 would create CalCare, which would eliminate private health insurance and create a state-run health care system in California. The legislation is linked to Assembly Constitutional Amendment 11, a proposal that would raise taxes on workers and businesses to fund the system.

CalCare is backed by several labor groups and the California Nurses Association, while facing fierce opposition from more than 120 medical and business groups.

The Progressive Caucus earlier this week sent an email to caucus members and all lawmakers in the states Democratic Party outlining specific steps to take should their Assembly member reject or not vote on the bill.

Any Assemblymember that fails to vote Yes on CalCare should expect to have their endorsement pulled, the memo read.

Because AB 1400 was introduced last year, it must get out of the Assembly Monday or the proposal dies for the year.

AB 1400 cleared its first two hurdles in the Assembly Health Committee and Assembly Appropriations Committee earlier this month.

Democrats in the Health Committee agreed to pass the bill in its first hearing, but some noted they would likely reject it when it reaches the Assembly floor, including Assembly members Autumn Burke, D-Inglewood, and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Davis. Neither Burke nor Aguiar-Curry has responded to a request for comment.

In the Appropriations Committee, Assembly Member Akilah Weber, D-San Diego, was the only Democrat who did not vote. Her office has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Shergill said Assembly members who lose their endorsement over the vote could have their endorsement saved at the Democratic Convention later this year.

But hey, it might not happen, he said.

Originally posted here:
Progressives threaten to pull endorsement from California lawmakers who reject single-payer health care bill - KGET 17

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke repeatedly about battling the root causes of record-breaking illegal immigration during a Thursday trip to Honduras but Harris said that her efforts are unlikely to alleviate the US-Mexico border crisis overnight.

Harris made a point of mentioning migration after critics chided her for not focusing more on the issue since President Biden appointed her last year to lead his administrations outreach to Mexico and Central America.

The number of illegal border-crossing arrests surged since Harris took on the role. In fiscal 2021, which ended in September, there were more than 1.7 million arrests at the border the most since at least 1986.

The root causes strategy has always been clear and we have been clear. The work we need to do is going to be work that will manifest over a long period of time. Hopefully not too long, but certainly not overnight, Harris told reporters during the trip to attend Honduran President Xiomara Castros inauguration.

The problems that we need to address are problems that did not occur overnight and the solutions if theyre going to have any impact will not occur overnight.

Thousands of Hondurans cheered during Harris arrival at a packed sports stadium for Castros inauguration. She shared a stage with Spanish King Felipe VI, Taiwanese Vice President William Lai and the leaders of several neighboring countries.

Harris later held a bilateral meeting with Castro where she brought up efforts to reduce causes of migration such as poverty and corruption.

A pool report said journalists were allowed to attend just six minutes of the Harris-Castro meeting, during which Harris also talked about COVID-19 aid.

You spoke about this in your inaugural address, in terms of the importance of uplifting the economy and what that means to families, what that means in terms of the creation of jobs and what that means on the issue of migration, Harris told Castro.

I particularly appreciated your point, which you and I have discussed before, which is most people dont want to leave home. They dont want to leave the place where they worship, their church, their grandmother. And if they leave it is usually because they are either fleeing harm, or they simply cannot satisfy their basic needs or their familys needs if they stay, Harris said.

Therefore, the area of cooperation and work that we will do together on economic prosperity will be pivotal to that issue, in particular irregular migration. We have also discussed, and you discussed at length in your inaugural speech, the importance of combating corruption.

A readout of the meeting from Harris office said she additionally emphasized that combating corruption and impunity remains at the center of our commitment to address the root causes of migration.

That release also said that Harris stressed the importance the U.S. places on combating sexual, gender-based and domestic violence and how this work is a core pillar of the U.S Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America.

Critics have accused Harris of largely shirking her duties as Bidens point person on reducing illegal immigration and Republicans generally urge the Biden administration to adopt stricter border policies to deter people from illegally crossing the border.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) tweeted, VP Kamala Harris is spending the day in Tegucigalpa celebrating the inauguration of an anti-Semitic, self-described socialist president in Honduras. Her time would be better spent working around the clock to strengthen our southern border. After all, she is the border czar.

Harris last year visited Guatemala and Mexico, but the June trip was overshadowed by her difficulty answering reporters questions about why she hadnt visited the US-Mexico border. Harrisvisited theborder shortly after that trip.

The VP has taken heat from members of both parties on her work addressing migration. Rep. Henry Cuellar(D-Texas) recently told the New York Times that hes given up on trying to work with Harris.

I say this very respectfully to her: I moved on, Cuellar said. She was tasked with that job, it doesnt look like shes very interested in this, so we are going to move on to other folks that work on this issue.

The rest is here:
Kamala Harris says her anti-illegal immigration efforts won't bear fruit 'overnight' - New York Post

Another year, another false claim about the cost of illegal immigration going viral.

Although former President Donald Trump is no longer in office trying to rally support for his border wall, the debate about illegal immigration continues, and one old immigration post is regaining traction on Facebook.

"Chuck Schumer: why should American citizens be responsible to pay 5 billion to fund the wall?" asks a screenshot of a Tweet that was shared on Facebook. "Better question. Why should American citizens be responsible to pay $155 billion annually to make sure illegal immigrants are taken care of better than American citizens?"

The 2019 post, which people were sharing and commenting on as recently as Jan. 20, was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The original tweet came from an account that has since been suspended and we could not find the date it was first posted, but Sen. Chuck Schumer was frequently at odds in 2018 and 2019 with then-President Donald Trump over the presidents plan to build a wall at the southern U.S. border.

In years past, PolitiFact has debunked claims that illegal immigration costs taxpayers $113 billion, $130 billion and even $250 billion annually.

We searched news clips and asked experts, but PolitiFact was unable to find a report that estimated illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $155 billion annually.

"The internet is full of a wide range of estimates of the costs of unauthorized immigrants and also of the benefits they bring to the United States," said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. "These estimates all focus on different types of costs and contributions, and many do not give a clear explanation of their methods."

She said she was not aware of "any good, well-researched and well-documented estimates" of the costs and benefits of immigrants illegally in the U.S. that she could recommend.

Even so, she said that the claim seemed far-fetched: "$155 billion sounds high for the estimated costs, but it is difficult to assess this claim without knowing what data and information was used to generate that estimate."

Regardless of the cost, that doesnt mean immigrants in the country illegally are "taken care of better than American citizens." In many cases, immigrants in the country illegally are ineligble for the assistance programs available to U.S. citizens.

Determining the exact cost of illegal immigration is difficult, but some analysts have tried.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, produced a 2013 report that estimated that immigrants living in the U.S. illegally "impose a net fiscal burden of around $54.5 billion per year."

But that estimate, which is now eight years old, is still more than $100 million off from the posts claim.

One of the highest more recent estimates available comes from a 2017 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR, a group that advocates for reducing legal and illegal immigration. Its report concluded that "In 2017, the total cost of illegal immigration for the United States at the federal, state, and local levels was approximately $116 billion."

The authors of the report said they estimated the total cost of illegal immigration by subtracting the tax revenue paid by immigrants here illegally from "the total economic impact of illegal migration," though there is no clear consensus on the overall economic impact.

Critics of FAIRs 2017 report said the organization vastly overestimated the net cost of illegal immigration.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy think tank, called the report "fatally flawed" and published a detailed critique of FAIRs work: "FAIRs report reaches that conclusion by vastly overstating the costs of illegal immigration, undercounting the tax revenue they generate, inflating the number of illegal immigrants, counting millions of U.S. citizens as illegal immigrants, and by concocting a method of estimating the fiscal costs that is rejected by all economists who work on this subject."

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that uses data to argue for low levels of immigration, said he conducted his most comprehensive analysis of the cost of immigrants in the U.S. illegally in 2017.

He said he tried "to take into account all their taxes and all the services they use in their lifetime, while excluding U.S. born descendants." Camarota noted that his lifetime estimate heavily discounts future costs and more heavily weights current costs.

In 2018, he adjusted that estimate to 2018 dollars, suggesting that each immigrant in the U.S. illegally costs nearly $70,000 during their lifetime.

"The numbers are large, but remember it is over a lifetime," he said.

When asked what immigrants in the country illegally cost each year, on average, Camarota said "a back of the envelope estimate" based on his lifetime cost analysis would fall somewhere between about $24 billion and $48 billion annually, depending on the methodology used.

Thats significantly below the $116 billion estimate reached in the FAIR report and the $155 billion claimed in the Facebook post.

Our ruling

A Facebook post claimed American citizens "pay $155 billion annually to make sure illegal immigrants are taken care of better than American citizens."

We couldnt find evidence suggesting illegal immigration costs $155 billion annually.

Determining the exact cost of illegal immigration is complex and a source of ongoing debate among experts. Available reports estimate that immigrants in the U.S. illegally cost less than $155 billion annually with one of the highest totals estimating a cost of $116 billion annually.

Regardless of the cost, that doesnt mean immigrants in the country illegally are "taken care of better than American citizens."

We rate this claim False.

Read more here:
There's no evidence Americans pay $155 billion each year to cover the cost of illegal immigration - PolitiFact

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is applying pressure to President BidenJoe BidenFormer chairman of Wisconsin GOP party signals he will comply with Jan. 6 committee subpoena Romney tests positive for coronavirus Pelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better MORE and Senate Democrats to pass his signature Build Back Better Act by the State of the Union at the start of March.

Rep. Pramila JayapalPramila JayapalPelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better Left says they're not to blame for Biden's problems On The Money Economy had post-recession growth in 2021 MORE (D-Wash.), who chairs the caucus, said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that the case for passage of the partys sweeping climate and social spending package has only become more urgent since negotiations around thebill stalled.

Public housing residents have endured devastating fires, the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs continue to crush working people, and parents are desperate for child care support. This desperately needed relief cannot be delayed any longer, she said.

Jayapal said the caucus wants Biden and Senate Democrats to secure the plans passage byMarch 1 so the president can use the power of the State of the Union platform to share with the nation the relief that people will soon receive.

This is both achievable and necessary, she said. There is agreement among Senate Democrats on significant parts of this bill: climate action, the care economy, taking on Big Pharmas price gouging, and lowering health care costs. There is agreement on the need to reduce rising costs facing ordinary Americans and that is exactly what Build Back Better does.

Democrats have been working since last summer to pass the trillion-dollar plan, a significant chunk of Bidens legislative agenda that the party hoped to use to unlock funding for items like universal pre-K, historic investments for climate action and affordable housing.

However, negotiations stalled around the plan last month amid opposition from Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinPelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better On The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 Billionaire GOP donor maxed out to Manchin following his Build Back Better opposition MORE (D-W.Va.), a key centrist holdout who has been reluctant to get on board with the spending package, citing concerns about the size of the package and rising inflation.

I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there," Manchin declared on "Fox News Sunday" in December. "This is a 'no' on this legislation."

Since then, Democrats have reached out to Manchin to revive talks around the plan.

There's a lot of conversation going on now. They've been reaching out, Manchin said in an interview with West Virginia MetroNews's Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday morning. He also said hes still open to participating in negotiations around the spending plan, though he added he wants to be realistic, after again voicing concerns about inflation.

The interview comes a week after Manchin said Democrats would be "starting from scratch in talks around the plan, casting more uncertainty about when the party will likely pass the package after already spending months crafting the legislation.

Original post:
Progressives apply pressure on Biden, Senate to pass Build Back Better | TheHill - The Hill

INDIANA (WEHT) Attorney General Todd Rokita announced January 27 he is investigating the impact of illegal immigration on Hoosiers.

According to a news release from the State of Indiana Attorney General, in this second trip to the border in three months, Attorney General Rokita is gathering evidence of the border crisis and its damage ahead of further legal action.

The Biden Administration and the radical left are tearing our country apart by incentivizing lawlessness and breaking the rule of law, which is the opposite of what makes our country great, said Attorney General Rokita. These hallmarks of American Exceptionalism are ignored when illegal immigration is practically encouraged. A news release from the State of Indiana Attorney General says that Attorney General Rokita will meet with other attorneys general from around the country while in Texas to figure out the next steps to address the border issue.

Originally posted here:
AG Rokita investigating illegal immigration in Indiana - Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW)