WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, August 12, 2019

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1/ The Trump administration made it harder for legal immigrants who rely on government benefit programs to obtain permanent legal status as part of a new policy aimed cutting the number of legal immigration and reducing the number of poor immigrants. The new regulation makes it easier for federal officials to deny green cards and visa applications to legal immigrants who have received public benefits, such as Medicaid, food stamps, or housing vouchers, have low incomes, or little education, deeming them more likely to need government assistance in the future. Wealth, education, age and English-language skills will take on greater importance for obtaining a green card, as the change seeks to redefine what it means to be a "public charge." (CNN / NBC News / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times)

2/ The White House has ordered ICE officials to conduct more "workplace enforcement operations" this year. After the recent raids in Mississippi led to the arrest of at least 680 undocumented workers, ICE field offices across the country were told to identify at least two locations in their respective regions as potential targets for additional raids. (CNN)

• "If you’re a good worker, papers don't matter": How a Trump construction crew has relied on immigrants without legal status. For nearly two decades, the Trump Organization has relied on a roving crew of Latin American employees at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New York to Florida. (Washington Post)

3/ The Trump administration weakened the Endangered Species Act, allowing the government to put an economic cost on saving a species. The changes will also make it harder to consider the effects of climate change on wildlife. Critics argue that the change will accelerate the extinction for some plants and animals and clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live. (New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News / Washington Post)

• The EPA dropped salmon protections after Trump met with with Alaska's governor. EPA scientists were planning to oppose a controversial Alaska mining project on environmental grounds that could devastate one of the most important wild salmon fisheries. In 2014, the project was halted because an EPA study found that it would cause "complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources" in some areas of Bristol Bay. (