Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo
Rutgers logo
General

Social Policy Network Newsletter: October 11

Date

October 11, 2024

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we will be focusing on local/regional and national policy news that impacts (or is impacted by) the Hispanic community. In addition, we will be posing events sponsored by and for the Latinx community.

If you have any events or news you would like to share, please email us at russwswpn@gmail.com!

Deadlines are approaching!!

Tuesday, November 5th, is Election Day, and it's rapidly approaching. Make a plan about how you are going to vote!
Are you registered?
Can you vote early?
Can you vote by mail?
Can you work the polls?
If you vote in person; where is your polling place?
When are the hours?
How will you get there? 

Did you know that in some states, even if you registered previously, it is possible that you could have been removed from your states' voter rolls? You can quickly check your voter registration status to ensure you are still actively registered to vote. 

Here are important registration and voting deadlines for the tri-state area:

New Jersey:

Register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, and find more info about NJ voting here.

New York:

Register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, and find more info about NY voting here.

Pennsylvania:

Register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, and find more info about PA voting here.

Not from any of these states? Don't worry! Click the buttons below to register, verify your voting status, apply to work the polls, find your deadlines and polling place, and sign up to vote by mail.

Professional Opportunities
SNAP Navigator - RWJBH Social Impact and Community Investment (Somerville, Rahway, New Brunswick, Lakewood, Toms River, Jersey City, NJ)

Video Producer Fellow - More Perfect Union (remote)

Research Data Analyst 2 #158-24 - New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission (Ewing Township, NJ)

Program Officer - The Fund for New Jersey (Hybrid: Princeton, NJ)

Assistant Professor of Social Work (MSW), Tenure Track Professor - Stockton University (Galloway, NJ)

Policy Analyst - Department of Labor, Women's Bureau (Washington, DC)

Research Data Analyst 2 - New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission (Ewing Township, NJ)

Legislative Liaison - NJ Department of Children and Families (Trenton, NJ)

National Policy News Highlights
3% of American High Schoolers Identify as Transgender, First National Survey Finds
The New York Times
“The data come from the agency’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a survey of more than 20,000 high school students conducted in public and private schools across the country every two years. The 2023 survey was the first to ask teenagers in all schools whether they identified as transgender.”

Research shows that DACA benefits both Dreamers and their US-born peers
The Brookings Institution
“In 2012, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provided legal protection and work authorization for over 650,000 undocumented youth living in the U.S. who were enrolled in school or had completed high school. As one of the most significant immigration reforms in recent years, DACA remains central to immigration policy debates, particularly amid fluctuating administrative actions attempting to cancel or reinstate the program.”

Regional Policy News Highlights
Democrats push to lower voting age to 16 for school board races
The New Jersey Monitor
“Top New Jersey Democrats promised to push legislation lowering the voting age to 16 for school board elections statewide at a teen activist conference at Rutgers’ Newark campus on Saturday. As book bans and the risks of school shootings have politicized high schools nationwide, dozens of young activists, many of them high school students, gathered at Saturday’s Vote 16 Youth Summit hosted by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.”

Push on to add protections for immigrants
NJ Spotlight News
“Advocates are applauding a new bill [the Immigrant Trust Act] that would safeguard the privacy of immigrants in New Jersey and limit how their immigration status is shared amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment across the country.”

Upcoming Events
Electoral Activism: The Urgency is Now!
Presented by the National Association of Social Workers
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024, 3:00 - 4:30pm
**virtual**
"The stakes are higher than ever! Imagine if all 700,000 social workers in the US each registered 3 people to vote… and they registered three more and so on. NO NEED To IMAGINE! 

"Join the leaders of the non-partisan National Social Work Mobilization Campaign (Voting is Social Work) to learn how you can mobilize your clients and colleagues to register people and get them to the polls, especially those targeted by voter suppression. Electoral activism is a key to social work's mission and impact on policy and programs. Voter engagement benefits individuals, communities. and the profession. Join in the Power of 3 Campaign to Get Out the Vote and to Strengthen Democracy!  

In this workshop, participants will learn about the history and current activities of National Social Work voter Mobilization Campaign (Voting is Social Work); examine the current and past relationship between the vote and US democracy, gain access to tools and acquire skills needed to engage clients, colleagues and constituents in voter registration and “get -out-the vote” activities and otherwise be prepared to increase their non-partisan civic participation and engagement.

Continuing Education Credits are available for a fee, otherwise the event is free to attend! 

Click here to register.

Arthur J. Holland Program on Ethics in Government: Navigating the News in the 2024 Election
Presented by the Eagleton Institute for Politics
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
7:00 - 8:00pm
Rutgers University Cook Student Center
59 Biel Rd, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Parking for staff, faculty and students available in designated lots and lot 99B. All others must register their vehicle here and park in lots 76, 99C & 99D.

"Join NPR’s Michel Martin and American Sunlight Project Co-Founder and CEO, Nina Jankowicz, for a moderated discussion on media in the era of disinformation."

"The American Sunlight Project is increasing the cost of lies that undermine our democracy. They have three project areas:

  1. Expose deceptive information practices and the networks and money that drive them.
  2. Educate the public about the threats we face and the effects of disinformation on society.
  3. Engage with policymakers to return truth to our national discourse."

About the Speakers:
Nina Jankowicz, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the American Sunlight Project. Nina is an internationally-recognized expert on disinformation and democratization, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, and the author of two books: How to Lose the Information War (2020), which The New Yorker called “a persuasive new book on disinformation as a geopolitical strategy,” and How to Be A Woman Online (2022), an examination of online abuse and disinformation and tips for fighting back, which Publishers Weekly named “essential.” Jankowicz has advised governments, international organizations, and tech companies, and testified before the US Congress, the British Parliament, and the European Parliament.

Michel Martin, is a host of Morning Edition. Previously, she was the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast, where she drew on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week’s news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted “Michel Martin: Going There,” an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member stations. Martin came to NPR in 2006 and launched Tell Me More, a one-hour daily NPR news and talk show that aired on NPR stations nationwide from 2007-2014 and dipped into thousands of important conversations taking place in the corridors of power, but also in houses of worship, and barber shops and beauty shops, at PTA meetings, town halls, and at the kitchen table.

Click here to register.

Policy Focus: Immigration

Last week, we discussed how Project 2025 would impact the future of healthcare if implemented.

This week, we'll examine how Project 2025 would impact the immigration policy and departments that handle immigration.

**Content warning: Project 2025 refers to undocumented residents as "aliens." We find this label dehumanizing and discriminatory. 

1. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
With the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security formally came into being as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts, opening its doors on March 1, 2003.

  • "...pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)," (pg. 133). 
    • The Project suggests combining U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be combined with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and establishing an entirely new department to address immigration at the cabinet-level with 100,000+ employees.
  • "...DHS has also suffered from the Left’s wokeness and weaponization against Americans whom the Left perceives as its political opponents," (pg. 135).
    • What does "wokeness" really mean? Project 2025 provides no definition.
  • " cut billions in [DHS] spending and limit government’s role in Americans’ lives by:
    • privatizing TSA screening and the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program,
    • reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government,
    • eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs, and
    • removing all unions in the department for national security purposes," (pg. 135).

2. Proposing the "Border Security and Immigration Agency (BSIA)" and its policies
Project 2025, if not able to dissolve DHS, would consolidate U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into one department, BSIA.

  • "A single nationwide detention standard should be codified that prevents individual states from mandating that federal government agencies adhere to widely expansive and ever-changing sets of standards. Such standards should allow the flexibility to use large numbers of temporary facilities such as tents," (pg. 140).
    • Many states enact legislation to protect migrants from entering detention facilities. Under this proposal, tents would be deemed suitable housing for detained migrants.
  • "Eliminate T and U visas. Victimization should not be a basis for an immigration benefit. If an alien who was a trafficking or crime victim is actively and significantly cooperating with law enforcement as a witness, the S visa is already available and should be used. Pending elimination of the T and U visas, the Secretary should significantly restrict eligibility for each visa to prevent fraud," (pg. 141).
  • "...eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations," (pg. 141).
  • Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) should be identified as being primarily responsible for enforcing civil immigration regulations, including the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without warrant where appropriate, subject only to the civil warrant requirements of the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] where appropriate," (pg. 142).
  • "The use of Blackies Warrants should be operationalized..." (pg. 142).
    • According to the ACLU, "The Blackie's warrant does not require that the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] name or even describe the allegedly undocumented aliens it seeks. Consequently, the raid is conducted by barring the exits, and questioning everybody, or discriminatorily questioning those who 'look foreign' or speak with a foreign accent."

3. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Reforms
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for processing immigration and naturalization applications and establishing policies regarding immigration services.

  • "USCIS should be returned to operating as a screening and vetting agency," (pg. 143).
    • The Project would like USCIS to strengthen the ability to access asylum and the legal barriers to immigration.
    • "...reimplementation of the USCIS denaturalization unit—an effort to maintain integrity in the system by identifying and prosecuting criminal and civil denaturalization cases, in combination with the Department of Justice, for aliens who obtained citizenship through fraud or other illicit means," (pg. 144).
      • Denaturalization is the process of revoking citizenship in the U.S. In reimplementing this unit, countless new citizens will be targeted.
    • "...spearhead an immigration legislative agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards high-skilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the 'best and brightest,'" (pg. 145).
    • "The oft-abused H-1B program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities," (pg. 145).
    • "Permanently authorize and make mandatory E-Verify," (pg. 146).
      • E-Verify is a mostly-voluntary Internet-based system that compares information entered by an employer from an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to records available to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to confirm employment eligibility.

As of the posting of this newsletter, there are only 25 days left until the election on November 5th. Before voting (which we hope you do!), take time to learn about the policies most important to each candidate and how they may impact you as a social worker, and your clients around the country. We will keep you informed on the stances of each candidate as we approach the election.

Please email us to provide any comments, ask questions, and provide information you would like to see in the newsletter!

The Social Work Policy Network's e-newsletter is created by:

K.D. "Dash" Barany, MSW/MPP Graduate Student, Network Research Assistant
Dr. Lenna Nepomnyaschy, RU Professor, Network Founder
https://socialwork.rutgers.edu/lenna-nepomnyaschy

You May Also Like