He’s fighting hard to restrict mail voting
Here’s what happened under President Donald Trump and his administration this week that you might have missed.
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For years, Trump has railed against mail-in voting, falsely blaming mail-in voting for his 2020 loss. “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” he declared in March, despite having voted by mail himself that same month.
He’s trying to severely restrict a practice that experts stress is secure and has grown in popularity since the pandemic. He’s launched a multi-pronged approach to do this:
In Congress: Republicans in Congress are considering legislation pushed by Trump to dramatically change how people cast ballots, including requiring anyone voting by mail to first show up in person and provide proof of citizenship, arguably defeating the purpose.
In the courts: The Supreme Court is considering whether states can count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward, a case that could force changes before November.
By executive order: Trump issued an executive order earlier this year trying to greatly limit who can receive mailed ballots. Presidents don’t have control over how elections are run; the Constitution grants that authority to states and Congress.
This week, a federal judge in D.C. appointed by Trump ruled the executive order can stay in place for now, saying nothing has happened yet to actually restrict mail voting.
But there are multiple lawsuits on this executive order, and courts have already blocked Trump’s efforts to require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The FBI is also seizing or trying to get ballots from states that Trump lost in 2020, including some mailed ballots in Wisconsin that has raised concerns from voting experts that voter-identifying information could be shared.
“We’ve had mail voting since the Civil War,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and head of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, “and we know it’s secure.”
Last week, the Trump administration announced a seismic change to immigration policy: most immigrants who apply for a green card — or permanent residency in the U.S. — will need to return to their country of origin first. This week, immigration officials started asking applicants why they hadn’t returned home.
This new rule appears designed to put pressure on applicants who came to the U.S. on tourist or student visas, overstayed them and later met the requirements for a green card (like being sponsored by a company, university or marrying a U.S. citizen).
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“Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement last week of those who arrive on tourist or student visas first.
Opponents argue that’s an inflexible reading of how people come to the United States that will greatly limit legal migration.
“This ignores the realities of life,” argues David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “People come as students, and then they get a permanent job offer. People come to visit friends, and then they get a marriage proposal. People come for whatever reason, and their country is taken over by someone who will persecute them.”
This change comes on top of a travel ban to 39 countries, deep restrictions on refugee admissions while prioritizing White South Africans, harsh treatment of some arriving migrants and scrutiny of how a mother was deported without her American toddler, who was placed with an `family member and later killed.
Republicans are winning the gerrymander wars. But they had two notable setbacks this week in the South.
In South Carolina, several Republican lawmakers joined with Democrats in the state legislature to block a map that would have eliminated its only majority-Black congressional district. The conservative pushback appeared more about timing than eliminating the only district in the state represented by a Democrat. Early voting for primaries had already started.
“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said. “And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway.”
Alabama Republicans are locked in a legal battle that goes back years on whether to create a second congressional district out of seven total where Black voters can elect their preferred candidate. Now, emboldened by the Supreme Court making it easier to gerrymander by race, they are trying to eliminate one a court ordered them to draw.
The practice is still technically illegal, and this week, a federal court found the Alabama map violated even a watered-down Voting Rights Act. Alabama Republicans are now asking the Supreme Court to weigh in and allow their map to stand for November’s elections.
But the gerrymandering wars are just beginning, and Black members of Congress told The Washington Post’s Anna Liss-Roy they are trying to find ways to respond before many of them could lose their seats in the coming years.
“We need a massive voter turnout,” said Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-New York), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “This is not a time to yield to voter suppression.”
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