Navajo, San Juan County leaders extend accord bolstering voting access
San Juan County and Navajo Nation leaders have agreed to extend an agreement meant to help assure voting access for Navajo residents.
The agreement, stemming from a 2016 lawsuit filed by the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission against the county, extends a prior accord that expired after the November 2024 general elections. Notably, the accord calls for creation of three language-assistance locations and polling places within Navajo Nation land in San Juan County, pre-election advertising in the Navajo language, Diné Bizaad, and employment of Navajo interpreters to aid in the election outreach.
'This settlement affirms a fundamental truth — the voices of Navajo voters in San Juan County matter. We are dedicated to making sure the ballot box remains open and accessible to Navajo language speakers today, tomorrow and every day after that,' said Abby Cook, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, which helped represent the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo Nation is spread across southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico, but the settlement agreement applies to the Utah portion of the reservation. According to 2024 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, 46.5% of the county's 14,601 residents are American Indians or Alaska Natives.
The original 2016 lawsuit stemmed from the move in Utah in 2014 to mail-in balloting and concerns the change disenfranchised Navajo voters, in part due to unreliable postal service in Navajo Nation territory. The first settlement agreement resolving the dispute was executed in 2018, the second was finalized in 2021, and the new one, extending the varied provisions through the 2028 general election cycle, was inked last week. The San Juan County Clerk's Office is the main county party in the matter.
The new accord, filed in U.S. District Court in Utah, says the goal of those involved is 'to continue to achieve, if possible, a larger turnout by Navajo voters in future elections.' The language assistance, it reads, has 'produced some noteworthy results,' including turnout by voters on the Navajo reservation of 89.07%, which compared to overall Utah voter turnout that year of 90.09%.
Per the agreement, voting information centers will be created in the run up to elections in Montezuma Creek, Navajo Mountain and Monument Valley. 'Each center will be staffed with a trained Navajo language interpreter, offering services including voter registration, ballot replacement, and language assistance,' reads an ACLU press release.
Additionally, election information will be provided in Diné Bizaad, on local radio stations and newspapers.
'All eligible voters have a right to full and equal voting access without barriers, including the right to read and understand their ballot and voting resources,' said Aaron Welcher, spokesman for the ACLU of Utah.
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Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Anti-ICE riots reveal the left has learned nothing. It's just handed Trump a gift
Editor's note: The following column first appeared in City Journal. Over the weekend, news of federal enforcement agencies conducting immigration raids sparked massive protests in Los Angeles. The city's mayor, Karen Bass, had denounced the enforcement campaign on X last Friday, accusing the Trump administration of sowing terror and defiantly stating, "We will not stand for this." Also fanning the flames was California's governor, Gavin Newsom, who claimed that the raids were "tearing families apart" and called the immigration arrests "chaotic," "reckless," and "cruel." Progressive groups' denunciations of the raids were even harsher. The ACLU called the enforcement plan an "oppressive and vile paramilitary operation," while a spokesperson for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network referred to the arrests as kidnappings. As word of the campaign spread, the protests quickly devolved into riots. Social media feeds were soon filled with scenes reminiscent of the violent unrest of summer 2020: looting, crowds surrounding burning vehicles, rocks thrown at law-enforcement cars, American flags set aflame, and the 101 freeway shut down. Such violence should have drawn swift and widespread condemnation from both left and right. Instead, prominent Democrats have largely remained silent on the mayhem, reserving their outrage for President Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard to restore order—a move that sparked yet another round of denunciations from the usual suspects. Even some of the president's critics who have called for an end to the violence seem motivated less by the belief that property destruction and assaults on police are wrong, and more by concerns that such unrest could bolster support for immigration enforcement or damage Democrats politically. Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Angelinos not to "fall into the trap that extremists are hoping for." The Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh, an open-borders advocate, lamented that "[s]upport for nativism depends on chaos," and argued that "[s]upport for mass deportations would wither without rioting." But who are the extremists in this situation? Surely it's the angry group of rioters setting cars ablaze and hurling rocks at passing police vehicles from highway overpasses. Appalling as the Left's response to the riots has been, it is not surprising. The unrest only reinforces a connection many Americans have already made between progressive causes and the violence too often carried out in their name. The chaos in L.A. follows the deadly and destructive riots that swept cities across the nation in 2020, as well as the more recent demonstrations sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Since that date, pro-Palestinian activists have harassed Jewish students on college and university campuses; shut down streets and transit hubs; set the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania's house on fire; shot and killed two Israeli embassy employees outside the Jewish Museum in D.C.; and hit elderly Jews peacefully marching in support of Israel with Molotov cocktails in Colorado. Democrats face a real political problem. It's not hard to see how this most recent episode of "fiery, but mostly peaceful" protests could boost support for the president's immigration enforcement campaign— especially given that many of those wreaking havoc in L.A. are waving the Mexican flag or burning the flag of the country in which they demand illegal immigrants be allowed to stay. Consider the contrast: on one side, an administration following through on the president's promise to strengthen immigration enforcement, in part to make cities safer; on the other, rioters waving foreign flags and setting streets ablaze. It's hard to imagine a more unsympathetic image for the president's critics. If the Left wants to shed its reputation for siding with arsonists who block city streets, seize campus quads, and attack police, its leaders could start by condemning the lawlessness in Los Angeles and pledging to work with the president to restore order. Their refusal to do so lies at the heart of Donald Trump's political strength—and remains a vivid sign of a lesson still unlearned.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘This isn't an isolated incident': Trump's show of military force in LA was years in the making, say experts
Donald Trump is targeting Los Angeles, the biggest city in deep-blue California – a sprawling metropolis shaped by immigrant communities that the president described on Tuesday as a 'trash heap' – with a show of force many years in the making. After his first term, Trump expressed regret for not taking a more heavy-handed approach to the 2020 protests over George Floyd's murder by police. So when demonstrations against his immigration crackdown erupted last week in Los Angeles, he turned to the playbook he wished he had used then – federalizing the national guard and deploying hundreds of US marines to confront what Democratic officials insist was a manageable situation, escalated by a president who the state's governor, Gavin Newsom, has warned is increasingly behaving like a 'dictator'. It's the made-for-TV clash Trump has been waiting for: visually gripping scenes of unrest in a Democratic-run city furious over his administration's mass deportation agenda. 'Chaos is exactly what Trump wanted, and now California is left to clean up the mess,' Newsom said on Twitter/X. Related: Los Angeles protests: from immigration raids to sending in the marines – a visual timeline Trump has said he 'would have brought in the military immediately' if he could redo 2020. And, former defense secretary Mark Esper told NPR in 2022, Trump asked if protesters could be shot. 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?' Trump asked, according to Esper. The showdown in Los Angeles brings together longtime overlapping goals of the Trump regime: bringing state and local officials to heel; trying to tap as many resources as possible for his deportation program; and going after protesters who speak or act against him, all while stretching the boundaries of legality. Sending troops into an American city to stifle largely peaceful protests is a 'test case' that, depending on how it plays out in Los Angeles, could be a strategy the administration replicates in other cities, said Sarah Mehta, the deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU. 'This isn't an isolated incident,' she said. 'I think what we're seeing in Los Angeles is this culmination of several weeks of incredibly aggressive immigration policing, the federal government asking the military to get further involved in immigration enforcement, including the transportation of unaccompanied children and attention and riot control, and then on top of that, again, these really targeted attacks against cities and states that are not going along with Trump's aggressive deportation regime.' Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said her city was being used as a proving ground for how the federal government might exert its authority over other local governments that resist the president's agenda. 'I feel like we are part of an experiment that we did not ask to be a part of,' she said, speaking at a press conference in downtown Los Angeles on Monday. Related: 'The language of authoritarianism': how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention While Trump sows chaos in the streets, the mayor said, the city's immigrant communities were gripped by a 'level of fear and terror' over the administration's escalating enforcement efforts, with some undocumented workers staying home and mixed-status families afraid to attend school graduation ceremonies. *** In January, Trump returned to power with what he says is a popular mandate to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history. Amid growing frustration over the pace of removals, the White House is turning to increasingly forceful tactics, including stepped up raids on workplaces. On Friday, scattered protests broke out in response to a series of immigration sweeps, in some instances by federal agents wearing tactical gear, at businesses across the Los Angeles area. Newsom and Bass said local and state law enforcement were fully capable of handling the demonstrations, but as images of cars on fire and clashes with police spread online, the Trump administration ignored the state's wishes and brought in the national guard – an extraordinary move that state officials said brought even more protesters into the street over the weekend. Then on Monday, a day of larger, mostly peaceful protests, Trump ordered additional national guard troops and hundreds of US marines to the city. 'We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,' Trump vowed, in a speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg on Tuesday. Democratic cities, in particular, have long drawn Trump's ire. On the campaign trail, he frequently pointed to liberal cities, painting them as hellscapes devoid of capable leadership that would be better run with him in White House. Speaking in Iowa in 2023, Trump said he would use federal troops to 'get crime out of our cities'. 'The next time I'm not waiting [for local approval]. We don't have to wait any longer. We got to get crime out of our cities,' Trump said. He, and the conservative allies behind Project 2025, have pushed for withholding federal funds from states and cities that don't aid federal immigration enforcement. Democrats expected him to make good on these threats. In August 2024, the New York Times reported that Trump's allies spent the four years between his presidencies finding legal justifications for using the military in these situations, often in the immigration context, but sometimes against protesters. Related: 'We're not afraid of you': LA protesters, enraged by Trump, flood the streets In a statement provided to the Guardian, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: 'President Trump has rightfully highlighted how poorly Democrat cities are run – including emboldening criminals, providing sanctuary to criminal illegal aliens, and putting Americans at risk. In LA, illegal aliens and violent criminal protesters spent the last several days attacking law enforcement, waving foreign flags, lighting cars on fire, and unleashing a state of outright anarchy. Anyone downplaying this behavior, or describing it as a 'manageable situation', is either an idiot or a propagandist for the Democrat party.' California, the biggest blue state in the country, has long been Trump's favorite foil. On issue after issue – from climate to immigration to education – Trump cast the state as a hellscape 'ruined' by 'radical left' lunacy. In defending his national guard deployment, Trump decried Los Angeles a 'once great American City' that 'has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals'. Newsom and attorney general Rob Bonta on Monday sued Trump over what they said was an 'unlawful' deployment of the national guard over the governor's objections. Bonta noted that it was the state's 24th legal action against the Trump administration in 20 weeks. Democrats say the timing of his crackdown on Los Angeles was no coincidence. Trump had just endured a days-long stretch of bad news: his political partnership with Elon Musk imploded, the US government returned a Maryland man wrongly deported after weeks of insisting they would not bring him back and the president's 'big, beautiful bill' stalled on Capitol Hill. 'What's happening in Los Angeles is straight out of the Trump playbook,' California senator Alex Padilla said, 'manufacture a crisis and provoke violence to distract from terrible headlines.' Since January, Trump's administration has targeted universities and college students on visas who had participated in pro-Palestinian activism. The crackdown comes as states have advanced a host of anti-protest bills in the last few years to expand criminal punishments for protesting. On Monday, Trump called for Newsom's arrest – a move the governor called an 'unmistakable step toward authoritarianism'. 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor,' Newsom said after Trump's threat of arrest. 'This is a line we cannot cross as a nation.' Trump was unable to identify a crime he thought Newsom had committed. House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Newsom should be 'tarred and feathered'. Related: How can Trump use the national guard on US soil? The Trump administration has already gone after several elected officials who resist his administration's crackdown. Trump's justice department has charged a sitting congresswoman, LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, with assault after a clash with immigration officers at a May protest outside of a detention facility in Newark. During the incident, the city's mayor, Ras Baraka, was arrested, though charges against him were dropped. And a Wisconsin judge was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly helping a man evade immigration agents seeking his arrest in her courthouse. *** Stephen Miller, the hardline architect of Trump's immigration agenda, used a simple term to describe the protests last week: 'insurrection'. Miller, who was raised in the seaside city of Santa Monica on Los Angeles's west side, called his home state 'the largest sanctuary state in America', underscoring its status as a trial balloon for other communities. He has described the militarized response in Los Angeles as a 'fight to save civilization'. 'When the rioters swarmed, you handed over your streets, willingly,' he retorted to Newsom on Monday. 'You still refuse to arrest and prosecute the arsonists, seditionists and insurrectionists. This Administration is fighting to save the city and the citizens you have left to struggle and suffer.' Trump, who notably pardoned all those who were convicted for their roles in the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021, has been debating whether to invoke the Insurrection Act, the 18th-century law that would give him the power to activate the military or national guard to quell rebellion or unrest. For now, he is using a different legal justification, though the threat of the act looms. The right to peacefully assemble is guaranteed by the first amendment. Protests in LA have largely been peaceful, not amounting to an insurrection. Engaging the military is a tipping point, Mehta said, because it is 'striking and terrifying' to see the president use every tool he can to punish his critics. But, she said, it also reveals the administration's weakness – they have to use all of these tools to compel compliance. 'They're doing this because they need to make a show of force, and because people are resisting and people are pushing back,' Mehta said. 'People are outraged, and they're very angry about the way that their civil rights are being stripped away, and the aggressiveness with which immigration agents are responding to members of our community.' Related: Misinformation about LA Ice protests swirls online: 'Catnip for rightwing agitators' Mass 'No Kings' protests are expected across the country in response to the multimillion dollar military parade Trump has planned in the country's capitol for Saturday, his 79th birthday and the US army's 250th anniversary. Organizers expect protests in more than 1,800 locations, though not in Washington DC. About 100 of the events have been added since Trump sent troops to Los Angeles. 'Now, this military escalation only confirms what we've known: this government wants to rule by force, not serve the people,' the coalition behind the 14 June protests said in a statement. Speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he wasn't aware of any planned protests against the event, but claimed that any participants 'hate our country'. Then, he issued a dark warning: 'For those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force.'

Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Laramie County sheriff secures first agreement allowing deputies to act as ICE agents
CHEYENNE — Some deputies with the Laramie County Sheriff's Office will now be authorized to interrogate and process suspected undocumented immigrants per an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 287(g) Jail Enforcement Agreement. On May 20, LCSO joined agencies in more than 40 states officially participating in the Jail Enforcement Model (JEM), one of three models offered to local law enforcement that empower officers to act as ICE agents, with some limitations. Named for Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), these agreements allow ICE to delegate some of its responsibilities to state and local law enforcement officers. LCSO is pursuing all three agreements available to law enforcement, including the Warrant Service Officer (WSO) model and the Task Force Model (TFM), both of which are pending approval. 'Our focus on investigations for immigration is going to be kept to traffic stops and on the interstates for interdiction, or if you wind up in jail,' Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Friday. 'Our policy is going to be pretty clear that our deputies, when they go to a call or do an investigation, do not ask about immigration status.' Regardless of Kozak's intent, these programs have been heavily criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others for potential financial and civil rights consequences, relying on law enforcement to do ICE's job at the expense of services to locals. Each agreement requires local law enforcement to take on different immigration tasks typically associated with ICE, said ACLU of Wyoming Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Malone. Even though there is training required, it is not as rigorous as the training for full-time ICE agents. The financial, civil rights and local service risks associated with the program don't lessen by pursuing all three contracts, Malone said. 'People are receiving less training, (and) are doing this in addition to their regular jobs,' Malone said. 'The exact scope depends on which type of model, but by choosing to take on all three, you're just kind of multiplying the issues that come with taking on any one of these models.' While ACLU advocates point to several case studies that demonstrate these risks, Kozak says he doesn't see staffing or financial burdens being an issue. Kozak added that trust issues between immigrant communities and law enforcement exist regardless of the agreements. 'That's always been an issue, no matter what,' Kozak said. 'Even though we've tried outreach to try to tell people not to be afraid to call us, it's still a problem.' LCSO has a few Spanish-speaking deputies who work on outreach to Spanish-speaking communities. Two of those deputies will be certified with ICE through the 287(g) agreements, according to Kozak. The first MOA While the TFM and WSO agreements are still pending, the JEM agreement is in effect, allowing deputies to process 'removable aliens,' or immigrants who are suspected of violating immigration laws. Per the memorandum of agreement between LCSO and ICE, deputies assigned to detention duties will perform immigration-related tasks in addition to performing their normal duties. Under the direction and supervision of ICE, these deputies will have the authority to: * Interrogate any person held in the jail 'who the officer believes to be an alien about his or her right to remain in the United States.' * Process for immigration violations for those arrested on federal, state or local offenses. * Serve and execute warrants of arrest for immigration violations. * Administer oaths and take and consider evidence, including fingerprinting, photographing and interviewing suspected undocumented immigrants in custody. * Prepare charging documents, affidavits and take sworn statements for ICE supervisory review. * Detain and transport arrested immigrants subject to removal. Per the memorandum, LCSO is responsible for maintaining proper records and is required to notify ICE of a hold related to a suspected immigration violation within 24 hours. LCSO personnel are also required to 'report all encounters with asserted or suspected claims of U.S. citizenship to ICE immediately, but generally within one hour of the claim. From deputy to ICE agent Though he has reiterated the goal to maintain community trust and keep ICE actions restricted to the jail several times, Kozak has recently decided to pursue a contract that will give his deputies immigration authority outside of the jail, the 287(g) TFM. Kozak recently decided to pursue the more aggressive agreement after reflecting on his experience with law enforcement in Avon, Colorado. While in Avon, officers working with Kozak encountered two suspected violent offenders who were abusing approximately 18 victims of human trafficking. 'We asked ICE assistance in that case, and they would not assist,' Kozak said. 'We were almost ready to release the offenders because we had no authority to investigate the federal crimes.' After some pressure, Kozak said ICE eventually assisted. That was in the early 2000s, and now, Kozak says he wants to avoid that situation at all costs. 'I want our deputies who are doing human trafficking interdiction to be able to help victims and do everything all at once,' Kozak said. 'That's the main reason why I changed my mind about (TFM).' The TFM will allow deputies to be a 'force multiplier' in 'non-custodial settings,' essentially acting as ICE agents outside of the jail, which Kozak intends to utilize in drug and human trafficking interdiction operations. Now Kozak says that, assuming ICE is pursuing someone suspected of criminal offenses, deputies trained under the TFM agreement could potentially assist ICE with local operations. Task forces return under Trump While Kozak is hopeful that these deals will help build community trust, the 287(g) TFM has a history of civil rights abuses, particularly racial profiling, which caused it to be discontinued under the Obama administration, according to the ACLU. The option for TFM has only recently returned following an executive order from President Donald Trump in January titled 'Protecting the American People Against Invasion.' 'Depending on how each specific agreement is crafted and enforced, all three 287(g) models may expose local law enforcement agencies to potential liability for constitutional and legal violations,' two representatives of the ACLU of Wyoming wrote in an article published May 14. Despite the agreement's history, Kozak is still intent on utilizing it, pending ICE approval. 'We know I-80 (and) I-25 are the major corridors for human trafficking and drugs,' Kozak said. 'We just want to be effective in what we're doing, and … having our deputies certified to take action on all those issues.' Kozak added that often those involved in drug trafficking are also 'illegal aliens,' though data from the CATO Institute indicates that the majority of drug traffickers in the U.S. are citizens. According to the Department of Homeland Security, 'There is no single profile of a human trafficker; their only commonality is that they are driven by profit at the expense of others.'