Tag Archives: politics

ice, Immigrant Rights

In a Deep Red PA Town, Locals Vent Over a Planned ICE Detention Center

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The Tremont, Pa., area has roughly 2,000 residents and limited resources. The Trump administration plans to convert a warehouse there to hold nearly four times as many people.

Photos: The Department of Homeland Security plans to turn a warehouse in Tremont, Pa., into an immigrant detention center, but many local residents complain that they have been given little input. Credit…Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times

Tom Pribilla, wearing a grayish sweatshirt, stands in an aisle of a store containing tools and other hardware.
Tom Pribilla, at his hardware store, is one of the residents opposed to the detention center. “We don’t need that,” he said. Credit…Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times
Chris Hippensteel

By Chris Hippensteel

The New York Times

Reporting from Tremont and Pottsville, Pa.

  • April 9, 2026 – When the coal industry unraveled around Tremont, Pa., generations ago, it didn’t leave much behind. Nestled in the valleys of central Pennsylvania, the old mining town today has no hospital and no independent police force. A Family Dollar serves as its only grocery store. For years, the water supply has been so tight that trucks have at times hauled water in to keep the taps from running dry.

But this year, the Trump administration determined that the Tremont area — already creaking under the weight of its roughly 2,000 residents — could support one of its new mega immigrant detention centers, larger than any currently in operation.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security bought, without public notice, a vacant warehouse two miles down Tremont’s main street to house up to 7,500 detainees. With the site tentatively scheduled to open within the year, residents have been left to wonder how their area will sustain a captive population nearly four times its size, plus an accompanying work force.

“We don’t need that,” said Tom Pribilla, who has run a hardware store in Tremont for decades. “The community, the area, is not going to be able to absorb the costs

The Tremont warehouse is one of about a dozen that D.H.S. has purchased nationwide, all in an effort to build enough immigrant detention centers to support President Trump’s mass deportation pipeline. Another planned processing center, in Berks County, Pa., just 30 minutes from Tremont, would hold up to 1,500 additional people.

A two-lane road cuts through a small town, with a tree-covered hill in the background.
The planned facility is a couple miles from Tremont’s main street. Credit…Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times

Across the country, the plans to convert warehouses into detention spaces have been met with fierce local blowback, even in deep-red areas, like Tremont, that have backed Mr. Trump. Recently, D.H.S. abandoned plans to purchase warehouses in places like Tennessee and Mississippi.

The Tremont project has become more muddled as D.H.S., under its new secretary, Markwayne Mullin, reviews the entire nationwide plan. But it has also maintained that it is still moving ahead with the warehouses it has acquired, as D.H.S. grapples with a shortage of detention space and an increase in apprehensions.

Whatever the outcome, the backlash in Tremont shows how the push to expand detention space is bringing the repercussions of the president’s mass deportation campaign to some of his typical strongholds. In Schuylkill County, Pa., (pronounced SKOOK-ul) which contains Tremont, more than 70 percent of the vote went to Mr. Trump in 2024, helpin g tip the scales in a critical swing state. (Continued)

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Fascism, ice, Immigrant Rights

PA County Jails Earn Millions of Dollars Detaining Immigrants for ICE

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Sister Anne McCarthy with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie looks through her signs protesting President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.

By Kate Huangpu and Danielle Ohl

Spotlight PA

April 6, 2026 HARRISBURG — A group of Pennsylvania counties has billed the federal government more than $21 million in recent years to detain immigrants in their jails, a first-of-its-kind review by Spotlight PA has found.

While these agreements predate the second Trump administration by years or even decades, they are receiving new attention as the president executes a mass deportation campaign that relies heavily on local partners.

They also highlight how counties in Pennsylvania already cooperate with ICE and other federal agencies to detain immigrants. Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security purchased two Pennsylvania warehouses to turn them into detention centers capable of holding 9,000 people collectively.

In those cases, local and county lawmakers say they were blindsided by the planned facilities, which they have limited power to block. The detention agreements involving jails that Spotlight PA has identified require the backing of elected county leaders, prison oversight boards, or both.

Five county jails have or recently had agreements with federal immigration enforcement agencies to hold people in their jails, sometimes for months, in exchange for significant fees, Spotlight PA found.

Clinton, Erie, Franklin, and Pike Counties collectively charged more than $21 million for detention in 2024 and 2025, invoices obtained by Spotlight PA show. A fifth county, Cambria, has a similar detention arrangement, according to federal records and a county official — but denied Spotlight PA’s September 2025 request seeking payment information because ICE did not start sending detainees to its jail until later in the month.

Local government officials in favor of the agreements told Spotlight PA that the revenue generated supports services such as the county jail or general fund expenses.

“You’re always going to have pushback one way or another, but we haven’t really experienced it to this point,” Cambria County Commissioner Scott Hunt told Spotlight PA in early March. “This is a relationship that has gone back many years.

“So I realize that emotions are kind of flared now, but this is something we’ve been a part of for years,” he added, “and I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t continue.”

At least one county leader concerned about ICE’s actions nationally told Spotlight PA the payments have become a crucial source of income that would take careful study and planning to replace.

But at a time when ICE and other federal immigration agencies face scrutiny for aggressive and sometimes deadly tactics during sweeping enforcement operations, Pennsylvanians have pushed back against local government collaboration.

During a February meeting of the Erie County Council, dozens testified for or against the county jail’s contract to hold people for federal immigration agencies.

“We believe that participating in any way in the enhanced enforcement is immoral,” said Sister Anne McCarthy with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, a monastery that has vocally opposed local cooperation with Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.

Others at the meeting asked the county council to keep the agreement intact.

Federal agents won’t stop enforcing the law just because Erie County stops holding people, they argued.

Ending the agreement could draw the ire of the president, one speaker speculated. Another suggested ending local detention would increase the number of people being sent to other jails hundreds of miles away.

And multiple speakers asked: What about the money the county stands to lose?

“ICE will find a different location to house their detainees,” said Fred Petrini, a Wesleyville resident and borough council member. “We will just be out a half a million dollars in funds that could help the county with expenses.”

Spotlight PA sent public records requests to more than 30 counties for invoices showing payments in exchange for arresting, detaining, holding, or processing people for ICE. The news organization also reviewed federal detention data. (Continued)

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    2026 Elections, Afghanistan, Democrats, Fascism, Iran, Iraq, Nuclear Weapons, Pittsburgh

    Rep. Chris Deluzio Stakes Out Leadership Role Among Elected Iraq Veterans Critical of Conflict in Iran

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    Chris Deluzio in body armor in Iraq during his deployment in 2009-10 with U.S. Army Civil Affairs.

    The Pittsburgh-area congressman has positioned himself as a leader among veteran voices on Capitol Hill since his election in 2022

    By Sam Janesch

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

    March 12, 2026 – WASHINGTON — By the time Chris Deluzio first arrived in Iraq, the pretext for the war had faded away long beforehand.

    It was 2009, years after the assertion that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction proved to be false. Mr. Deluzio — a Thornburg native who’d resolved to join the Navy even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when he was a high school senior — had graduated from the Naval Academy and already deployed twice at sea.

    His first tour on the ground arrived after it was “pretty clear this was a strategic failure” — when the country he fought for, he believed, “had wasted American lives and money.”

    “We used to joke before or after missions, ‘Did you find the WMDs? Anyone find the WMDs?’” said Mr. Deluzio, now a Democrat who represents all of Beaver and most of Allegheny counties in the U.S. House. 

    U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colorado, speaks alongside Reps. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, and others who learned Tuesday that federal prosecutors had tried and failed to indict them over statements asking the military to “refuse illegal orders.”

    Sam Janesch

    Rep. Chris Deluzio rebukes Trump again after DOJ ‘tried and failed to indict me’

    “People in those situations make jokes to get through it,” he said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. “But the fact that our government sent Americans to bleed and die and fight on the basis of lies absolutely shapes the job I have now. I thought it was my duty to do a good job with my unit as best I could, but there was always a source of frustration and anger.”

    Mr. Deluzio is now among the hundreds of members of Congress with the authority to decide whether American service members will be sent into war. (Continued)

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    Civil Liberties, Fascism, Immigrant Rights, Low Wage workers, Organizing, Pittsburgh, Racism, Right Wing, Solidarity, trump

    On The Ground With The Volunteers Tracking ICE Across The Pittsburgh Region

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    A group of people and a dog stand in a circle, talking, in a parking lot at night in front of a strip mall.
    Jaime Martinez, community defense organizer at Casa San José, coordinates with Rapid Response Network volunteers outside Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant in Gibsonia on June 17, after reports that federal agents were idling nearby in unmarked vehicles.

    Casa San José has trained hundreds of volunteers to monitor and respond to immigration enforcement. Public Source followed them through raids, courthouse watches and late-night calls.

    Avatar photoBy Quinn Glabicki

    Public Source

    July 31, 2025 – As federal immigration enforcement intensifies across the country, a local response has quickly scaled up across the Pittsburgh region. In Beechview, the nonprofit Casa San José has built a Rapid Response Network of trained volunteers who monitor and document ICE activity across Allegheny County and beyond.

    The network launched during the first Trump administration but has ramped up since January. As of July 30, it includes more than 250 trained volunteers — with nearly 175 more signed up for future training.

    Lea este artículo en español aquí.

    Casa San José, founded in 2013, focuses on immigrant rights and the Pittsburgh region’s Latino community — a mission amplified as the Trump administration rolls back protections for immigrants and directs federal resources toward a crackdown and mass deportations.

    Organizers traverse city neighborhoods, gather in church basements and empty parking lots, and educate residents about their rights and federal immigration tactics. Along with trained volunteers, who are prepared to legally observe, document and accompany people at risk of being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], they respond in real time to sightings, arrests and raids.

    Pittsburgh’s Public Source spent more than a month embedded with Casa San José’s organizers and volunteers, tracking their efforts from the courthouse to restaurants as they responded to immigration enforcement and supported families under threat.

    Photo: June 14 at the City-County Building, Downtown 

    Monica Ruiz, executive director of Casa San José, speaks to thousands of people gathered in front of the City-County Building in Downtown during a day of nationwide protest against the Trump administration.

    “They are disappearing our people. This is our reality. Every single day. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. We cannot continue to allow this to happen in our communities,” said Casa San José Executive Director Monica Ruiz.

    “Casa San José is the only organization on this side of the state that is doing this kind of work.” 

    Ruiz said she has received five death threats since November, forcing her to relocate Casa San José’s office and to reconsider speaking publicly.

    Photo: June 17 at Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant, Gibsonia

    As volunteers monitor the scene, Jaime Martinez, community defense organizer at Casa San José, speaks by phone with nine workers sheltering inside the restaurant — part of the network’s effort to document enforcement activity and support those at risk.

    Sharon Bonavoglia was the first to arrive at a quiet strip mall in Gibsonia late on June 17. She had received the call because she lives nearby, and because she’s one of a growing network of volunteers responding to reports of federal immigration enforcement in and around Allegheny County.

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    Democrats, GOP, Harrisburg, labor, Low Wage workers, Minimum Wage

    PA. House Passes Bill To Raise The Minimum Wage

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    Signs are Senate Republicans may be more open to a hike this time around.

     Photo: State Rep. Roni Green (D-Philadelphia) speaks at a rally in the Capitol rotunda on Tuesday, on raising the state’s minimum wage to $20 an hour

    By: Ian Karbal 

    PennCapital-Star

    June 11, 2025  – The state House voted along party lines Wednesday to raise the minimum wage to $15 for most Pennsylvanians, and to $12 for those working in smaller, rural counties.

    It’s a significant step in the latest effort by Democrats to get it above the federal rate of $7.25. 

    Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has not been hiked since 2008 and is lower than all surrounding states — New York, Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

    The measure’s sponsor, House Labor and Industry Committee chair Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia), said the bill is in an attempt to compromise with Republicans who have long warned about the potential impacts on businesses, especially in smaller counties with a lower cost of living.

    “Since I’ve been chair, we’ve been trying to figure out a different approach to get this done,”  Dawkins told the Capital-Star. “This time around, we had a little bit more insight into where our challenges lie, one particularly being that some of our counties were worried about moving too quickly, and some were not comfortable going over $12.”

    A previous bill sponsored by Dawkins passed the House in 2023, but died in the Republican-controlled Senate. And in 2019, the Senate passed a Democratic-led bill to raise it to $9.25, which died in the then-GOP-controlled House.

    Dawkins’ latest bill would see the minimum wage rise gradually each year, reaching $15 in most counties on Jan. 1, 2028. It would also raise the tipped minimum wage from $2.83 to 60% of the minimum.

    Counties with populations below 210,000, with the exception of Centre, Monroe and Pike counties, would only see the minimum wage rise to $12 in the same timeframe. A spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus said the three smaller counties were put in the $15 bracket at the request of Democratic members who represent them.

    One exception to the gradual rise to $15 would be Philadelphia County, which Dawkins represents. There, the minimum wage would rise to $15 on January 1, 2026.

    “Philadelphia has the highest population of folks who are in what we call deep poverty levels,” Dawkins said. 

    He added there is particular urgency given the possibility some of those people may lose access to federal benefits like Medicaid and food assistance under a proposed bill moving through the GOP-controlled U.S. Congress.

    “We wanted to have some type of safety net there because we know those folks might be losing benefits and other services,” he said.

    But Dawkins’ attempt to offer an olive branch to GOP lawmakers in the form of gradual wage hike and a lower target in small counties appears to have failed in his own chamber. Every House Republican voted against the bill, and many criticized it during a two-hour debate on the floor Wednesday afternoon.

    “Not every wage is designed to be a livable wage,” Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R-Bedford) “My 16-year-old son is not working for a livable wage. Someone who is retired and is helping out part-time, that is not necessarily a livable wage.”

    He also warned that raising the minimum wage could result in the elimination of low wage jobs and harm small businesses in particular.

    Others opposed the very provisions Dawkins said were intended to earn bipartisan support.

    Rep. Kate Klunk (R-York) warned that creating different minimum wages across counties could lead to confusion for businesses that cross county lines, or encourage business owners to set up shop where the wage is lower.

    “This county-based patchwork of minimum wages is going to be a mess,” Klunk said. She used examples of businesses with locations in York and Adams counties as examples, including golf courses that straddle the border between them.

    “This bill is truly unworkable,” she said. “It is a compliance nightmare.”

    Rep. Mike Jones (R-York) was one of few Republicans to signal openness to raising the minimum wage during debate, but said he could not support Dawkins’ bill.

    “I do commend the majority chair for what I think is a good faith attempt at a reasonable compromise,” he said.

    However, he added that he would want to see exceptions to the minimum wage for nonprofits and high-school aged employees.

     ‘Potential to find middle ground’

    To become law, the bill will have to pass the Republican-controlled Senate.

    Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said that there may be room for compromise on a minimum wage increase, especially if paired with Republican-backed deregulation efforts he said could help grow “maximum wage jobs.”

    “Making sure working families have access to good, family-sustaining jobs is key to helping our commonwealth grow and thrive,” Pittman told the Capital-Star in a statement. “There is potential to finding [sic] a middle ground for an increase, but any possible action would need to be a commonsense adjustment, and sensitive to the impact changes would have on small businesses and non-profit organizations.”

    Republican Sen. Dan Laughlin (R-Erie), who has previously introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15, commended the House’s effort, but said he would not support a bill with a county-by-county approach.

    “While I appreciate that the House is trying to advance the conversation, I do not support HB 1549 in its current form,” Laughlin said in an emailed statement. “A minimum wage tied to county size just deepens the economic divides we’re supposed to be addressing. If we’re going to get serious about raising the minimum wage, we need to do it uniformly across the state, not with a patchwork approach that leaves people behind based on where they live.”

    Laughlin was an early Republican supporter of raising the minimum wage to $15 in Pennsylvania. But national trends may indicate more openness from members of his party this time around.

    On Tuesday, conservative U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 for all Americans.

    He told NBC News, “If we’re going to be a working people’s party, we have to do something for working people. And working people haven’t gotten a raise in years. So they need a raise.”

    His comments reflect an openness to his party’s increasing appeal to working class voters that was made apparent in the latest general election, which saw them move away from their traditional support of Democrats.

    Dawkins, the Pennsylvania bill’s sponsor, is also aware of the shift, and hopes that it will help the bill earn the support that it needs to pass.

    “I’m excited by the prospects, but I’m also disappointed that there could be a federal minimum wage that’s gonna be higher than the state minimum wage — and it’s being offered by one of the most conservative members of Congress,” he joked. “But I’m hopeful it’ll help folks come around to the idea.”

    “This is what I believe we got elected to do,” he added. 

    Ian Karbal covers state government for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. He’s particularly interested in the influence of money in politics and how arcane policies affect Pennsylvanians across the state.

    Austerity, budget crisis, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democrats, Economy, Education, elections, fair trade, Fascism, Immigrant Rights, labor, Low Wage workers, safety net, social security, Solidarity, trade unions, trump

    Are Working People Meeting the Moment? Prepare for Battle

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    https://www.weekendreading.net/p/the-trump-regimes-war-on-working

    The Trump Regime’s War on Working People: The First 100 Days

    Weekend Reading

    How Unions are Resisting Authoritarian Attacks on Workers’ Rights—and Why It Matters for Everyone

    By Michael Podhorzer

    Apr 28, 2025

    Over the course of the first 100 days, appropriate attention has been paid to Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, law firms, universities, philanthropy, non-profit groups and the media as dangerous in their own right, but more importantly as essential elements of authoritarian consolidation. Yet almost no one has mentioned the attacks on an equally proven constraint on oligarchy and autocracy: unions. Trump and Elon Musk’s destructive ransacking of our government should remind us of what previous generations of Americans understood intuitively: that “we may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both,” as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it. Like other attacks on civil society, the Trump regime’s attacks on unions and working people do not just injure those directly targeted, but all of us, as the labor movement is one of the most essential bulwarks against authoritarianism.

    I’ve covered the indispensable role of unions in creating and protecting democracy and freedom in earlier Weekend Readings (Oligarchs Understand Power. Do We?, As Go Unions, So Goes America, More Than the Weekend: Unions, the Past and the Future of Democracy, and Then they came for the trade unionists).

    If we all have a stake in unions as bulwarks against authoritarianism whether we belong to one or not, the same is true because of how unions foster shared prosperity and a healthy society, which I elaborate on here and here. In that regard, it is crucial to recognize the Trump actions as coming from the same playbook as Reagan’s decisive firing of over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. It was more than punitive—it communicated a clear, aggressive stance against unions nationwide. The immediate aftermath saw corporate America follow Reagan’s lead, significantly increasing anti-union activities and adopting overt union-busting strategies.1 Reagan further entrenched anti-unionism by reshaping the NLRB into a body less protective of labor rights, reversing precedents that had previously safeguarded union activities.2

    As it did then, today’s federal war on working people comes at a key inflection point. Then it was the rush to globalization, coupled with financialization and deindustrialization. Now it is the imminent transition to artificial intelligence in the workplace. Musk’s firings are providing a new playbook for that transition—fire everyone so as to be able to start from scratch with AI with as little friction from a legacy workforce as possible. And, although not the topic today, it’s important to note here that with respect to DOGE cleaning house to make way for AI, it’s also cleaning house to make way for even more of the government to be privatized—providing a vast market for the tech companies’ AI products and services. Although this future is not certain, it seems to be Musk’s plan: first trash the government, then when the government fails, privatize.

    Today, I’ll lay out some of the most egregious actions taken by the Trump regime in the first 100 days to attack unions and working people in both the public and private sectors. Much of this is based on indispensable research by the Economic Policy Institute and its just released 100 Days, 100 Ways Trump Hurt Workers. (For more great reports like this, you can subscribe to EPI here.)

    Then I’ll document the robust pushback unions are mounting against the Trump regime’s war on working people in the courts. Unions have also been in the forefront of mobilizing public action, most notably the AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living, which in addition to leading and participating in protests3, has organized town halls across the country.4 AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler declared:

    The labor movement is not about to let Trump and an unelected billionaire destroy what we’ve fought for generations to build. We will fight this outrageous attack on our members with every fiber of our collective being.

    And, significantly, even sectors mistakenly thought to be pro-Trump like the Building Trades powerfully responded to Trump’s executive order eviscerating collective bargaining for federal workers:

    This executive order is an unprecedented assault on worker freedom and a direct attack on those fundamental rights. Americans know that patriotic blue-collar workers built this country, not billionaires. They also know that one of the last best chances to make it to the middle class is collective bargaining. NABTU and our affiliated unions will stand shoulder to shoulder with the entire labor movement to fight this head-on — and we will not back down.

    Continue reading Are Working People Meeting the Moment? Prepare for Battle →
    Civil Liberties, Immigrant Rights, Pittsburgh, Youth and students

    Timeline: Pittsburgh Higher Ed Responds To Trump Moves, As La Roche Is Latest To See A Visa Nixed

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    A timeline of federal higher ed changes

    and responses by Pittsburgh-area colleges

    and universities.

    Photo: La Roche University, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023, in McCandless. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)

    By Maddy Franklin
    Public Source

    April 11, 2025 –
    Here’s how President Donald Trump’s administration has roiled higher ed, and how the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and other local colleges and universities have responded.

    This timeline will be updated as developments occur.

    April 11
    A visa held by an undergraduate student at La Roche University is revoked, a university administrator shared with PublicSource.

    Revocations and wipes of international students’ records through a Department of Homeland Security system have been widespread over the week. Much of this is occurring, schools and students report, without communication from the government and with no reasons provided.

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that there’s “no right to a student visa” and argued that visas would be cancelled in cases the government finds “appropriate,” such as participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

    Without legal status, students with terminated visas risk deportation.

    We are local reporters who tell local stories.
    Subscribe now to our free newsletter to get important Pittsburgh stories sent to your inbox three times a week.

    April 9
    Visas held by two recent graduates and one current Pitt student are revoked, according to an email sent by a university administrator. The administrator said no known immigration agencies or authorities have been on campus, and the students were offered unspecified “support.”

    PublicSource reached out to Duquesne, Point Park, La Roche, Carlow, Chatham and Robert Morris universities to ask if students or recent graduates have been impacted by sudden visa terminations. Spokespeople for Duquesne, Point Park, Carlow and Chatham said there haven’t been any changes. RMU did not immediately respond.

    April 7
    Visas held by five recent graduates and two current CMU students are revoked, following a trend seen at universities across the country. The university reports that no immigration authorities have been on campus, and the students were connected with legal resources.

    March 19
    A congressional committee sends letters to six universities, including CMU, requesting information regarding Chinese students to assess national security risks. The letter states that U.S. higher ed institutions “are increasingly used as conduits for foreign adversaries to illegally gain access to critical research and advanced technology” and sets an April 1 deadline to turn over the details.

    March 14
    The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights opens investigations into CMU and 44 other universities nationwide for alleged Civil Rights Act violations following the guidance set out in the department’s “Dear Colleague” letter. The department said these institutions engaged in “race-exclusionary” practices within their grad programs by partnering with The Ph.D. Project, which “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”


    March 13
    After Pitt paused faculty and staff hiring, administrators say that federal actions are not the only reason for the freeze. At a university faculty assembly meeting, Pitt’s Chief Financial Officer Dwayne Pinkney says enrollment trends, inflation and flat state funding were also behind the decision. The freeze would’ve happened “a little later” if not for recent events, he says — federal funding uncertainty was simply the catalyst.

    Pages: 1 2
    elections

    Rep. Summer Lee And Residents Rail Against Trump And Musk At Packed Pittsburgh Town Hall

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    Town halls have become potent political theater early in Donald Trump’s second term, and Lee told a friendly crowd that Democrats must try different tactics in a “failing democracy.”

    By Charlie Wolfson

    Public Source

    March 20, 2025

    U.S. Rep. Summer Lee speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025, in a town hall meeting. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

    U.S. Rep. Summer Lee made a case for bolder action from elected Democrats at a town hall event Thursday evening, speaking to hundreds of constituents as her party tries to find its footing during the chaotic first months of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

    Lee, a second-term Democrat from Swissvale, took questions at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Constituents asked questions about Trump’s moves to drastically change federal policy on education and housing, potential cuts to Medicaid and Social Security and environmental issues.

    U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh on March 20, in a town hall event to solicit input and answer questions about the federal government two months into the second administration of President Donald Trump. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

    It was a friendly crowd for Lee in the historical heart of Black Pittsburgh, a neighborhood and city that reliably vote overwhelmingly Democratic. The crowd applauded and shouted in agreement at many points throughout Lee’s remarks.

    Lee argued that Democrats in Congress largely aren’t doing enough to push back on Trump’s agenda so far, echoing widespread criticism from the party’s rank and file that intensified after Senate Democrats provided votes to pass Trump’s budget measure last week.

    Her comments were in response to a question from audience member Veronica Pratt, who said that most elected Democrats “are not meeting the moment.”

    “There are a lot of people in Congress,” Lee said, “… who have been there for a very long time. Institutional knowledge is typically very important. But the things that worked for us even two years ago cannot work in a failing democracy. And we are in a failing democracy right now.”

    • U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
    • An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
    • Attendees hold up signs in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District while waiting in line for a town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
    • U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks to town hall meeting attendees at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20, 2025. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)
    • An attendee at a town hall meeting holds a sign while waiting in line outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, held the meeting to hear concerns about changes in the federal government since President Donald Trump’s inauguration two months prior. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

    In what may have been a veiled reference to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, Lee said “there’s no shame” in elder leaders stepping aside.

    “If you’ve served for 40 years, if you’ve served your time and this isn’t the moment you’re willing to fight back … then maybe it’s OK to step aside,” she said.

    The gathering was the latest representation of local opposition to the White House, where President Donald Trump has used his first two months back in power to begin a sweeping remaking of the federal government, shut down refugee resettlement and launch a large-scale deportation campaign. 

    Activist-led protests have occurred on city streets at times since the Jan.

    House lawmakers reintroduce bill to close Pennsylvania’s gender earnings gap

    “We’re going to see actions and they’re going to escalate across the country,” Lee said.

    Long an unassuming part of American democracy, town hall meetings have gained added significance this year. Republican congressional leadership observed a surge in protests at town halls held by GOP lawmakers, and urged them to stop holding the meetings. Democrats, meanwhile, have seen the open gatherings as opportunities to galvanize opposition to Trump.

    Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, speaks at a town hall meeting at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on March 20. (Photo by Cameron Croston/PublicSource)

    In sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s focus on removing any references to diversity and multiculturalism from government spaces, Thursday’s town hall began with a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” commonly referred to as the Black national anthem.

    The first question from the audience concerned Trump’s move just hours earlier to attempt to begin shutting down the federal Department of Education via executive order. 

    Lee predicted dire implications for residents, noting that the federal government provides thousands of dollars per student for Pittsburgh schools and predicting that if that money stops, schools will falter or the cost will be passed onto local property taxpayers.

    “If you cut and you gut public education, any child can be left behind,” Lee said. “… What does that mean for the future of America?”

    Another audience member asked about the influence of billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the government. Musk was Trump’s biggest campaign backer last year, spending a quarter billion dollars to boost his candidacy and those of other Republicans, and now has a wide-ranging role in shaping White House policy. Musk and the Musk-inspired Department of Government Efficiency have focused on making significant cuts to the federal workforce, sometimes going further than federal judges will allow and leading to lapses in federal services.

    Lee railed against the “idiocracy of Elon Musk and those babies he has working for him” and said she would use her seat on the House Oversight Committee to probe his business conflicts of interest. 

    Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

    Democrats, Economy, fair trade, Green Jobs, Infrastructure, labor, Manufacturing, Pittsburgh

    I’m a Rust Belt Democrat From a Swing District. Anti-Tariff Absolutism Is a Mistake.

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    A black-and-white photograph of a car’s rearview mirror showing an industrial plant.
    Credit…Eli Reed/Magnum Photos

    By Chris Deluzio

    Mr. Deluzio represents Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District.

    The New York Times Op-Ed

    March 7, 2025 – Democrats have wasted no time rejecting President Trump’s tariffs as “damaging” and “unnecessary.” My colleagues have lampooned them as “irresponsible,” “bad economics” and purely a tax on consumers. This anti-tariff absolutism is a mistake.

    I’m a Rust Belt Democrat from a swing district in Western Pennsylvania — where lousy trade deals like NAFTA stripped us for parts.

    Many of my constituents support smart tariffs, particularly ones that target China, and so do I. Watching my colleagues on the Hill, it’s clear we’re missing the mark. Democrats need to break free from the wrong-for-decades zombie horde of neoliberal economists who think tariffs are always bad.

    Mr. Trump’s tariff approach has been chaotic and inconsistent. There’s no doubt about that. But the answer isn’t to condemn tariffs across the board. That risks putting the Democrats even further out of touch with the hard-working people who used to be the lifeblood of the party — people like my constituents.

    https://38d3c177773902903b82d2899b5af789.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-41/html/container.html

    Instead, Democrats should embrace tariffs as one component of a broader industrial strategy to revitalize American manufacturing and make whole communities that have been hollowed out by decades of bad trade policy. This isn’t just about making the economy work for more Americans; it’s also about earning back the trust and faith of the people we need to win elections and who ought to be at the heart of the Democratic Party.

    Since the 1990s, presidents from both parties pushed trade agreements that were great for corporate bosses and their Wall Street overlords, but a disaster for districts like mine. American companies offshored production to take advantage of cheap labor in countries like Mexico, which for decades have crushed independent unions to keep wages rock bottom. Later, firms shifted production to China and Vietnam, which are often called out for employing beggar-thy-neighbor tactics like wage suppression, enormous subsidies and currency manipulation to jack up their exports.

    For too long, we absorbed these unfair imports and created a chronic trade deficit that deindustrialized our nation and fueled income inequality. In 2004, the grandfather of modern trade economics, Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson, revealed how offshoring could cost American workers more in relative wages than they gained from cheaper imported goods, making the current trade regime a bad deal for most Americans.

    Tariffs are one of a few tools that can break this cycle: They force mercantilist countries to increase their domestic consumption of what they produce because they can no longer dump it in the United States. Increasingly, policymakers — of all political stripes — recognize that tariffs can help protect industries that are key to our economic and national security, boost American production and wages, and safeguard workers’ rights as well as our air and water by incentivizing firms to raise their labor and environmental standards.

    If you oppose all tariffs, you are essentially signaling that you are comfortable with exploited foreign workers making your stuff at the expense of American workers. I am not and neither are most voters. Many polls show that Americans — especially the three-fifths without college degrees — support tariffs in part, economists have suggested, because communities harmed by global competition view them “as a sign of political solidarity.” The Biden administration, to its credit, tripled tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. So, why is the Democrats’ only message on tariffs that they raise prices? That was the play during the 2024 election and it flopped. Just last month, a CBS poll found that a majority of Americans one, thought Mr. Trump was not focused enough on lowering prices, two, believed that tariffs could increase prices and three, still wanted tariffs on China.

    Rather than reflexively condemning all tariffs, Democrats should be highlighting how Mr. Trump’s scattershot threats, unanchored to any real industrial strategy, will not deliver on the goals of rebuilding American manufacturing, raising wages or rebalancing trade.

    For one thing, tariffs are effective only when used in a predictable and stable way — and the Trump administration’s approach has been anything but. On Feb. 1, Mr. Trump announced he was imposing new 10 percent tariffs on China and fixing part of a trade scam that allows four million packages to enter the United States daily without facing tariffs, taxes or meaningful inspection — simply because they’re labeled “low value.” Not only does this “de minimis” loophole undermine U.S. producers and retailers, but traffickers also often exploit it to sneak in deadly fentanyl-laced pills and fentanyl precursor chemicals. Days after his announcement, Mr. Trump flip-flopped and reopened the loophole. He raised China tariffs another 10 percent on March 4 — good! But still, the loophole means billions in Chinese imports can evade tariffs and inspections.

    Mr. Trump’s chaotic tariff two-step — imposing, delaying, threatening and then again imposing tariffs, including on allies like Canada with whom we mainly have balanced trade — is bad business for America. Entrepreneurs ready to invest in production here sit on the sidelines, wondering where the tariff roller coaster will stop. (Continued)

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    Civil Liberties, Democrats, Fascism, GOP, Harrisburg, Organizing, Philadelpia, Pittsburgh, Right Wing, Solidarity, trump

    ‘We Are Going To Save Ourselves’: Anti-Trump Crowd Gathers At PA Capitol In 50501 Rally

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    Photo; PA Rep Malcolm Kenyatta speaking to protestors in Harrisburg. By Bethany Rodgers

    • Protests against President Trump and his agenda, including the involvement of Elon Musk, took place nationwide.
    • Many protestors believe there is a renewed sense of urgency to oppose Trump’s policies in his second term.

    By Bethany Rodgers
    USA TODAY NETWORK

    Feb. 5, 2025 – HARRISBURG — Scores of protestors gathered outside the Pennsylvania state capitol Wednesday as part of nationwide demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s administration and the Project 2025 agenda.

    The gathering was part of a nationwide wave of protests coordinated by the 50501 movement, short for “50 Protests, 50 States, One Day.” In Pennsylvania, demonstrations were also planned for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

    Attendees waved signs calling for Trump’s impeachment, rainbow banners and American flags. A number of them also aimed their ire at Elon Musk, the billionaire who has assailed federal government agencies in recent days with the immense powers Trump has granted him.

    Mari-Beth DeLucia, of Harrisburg, said she knows someone who works for the U.S. Agency for International Development, a government humanitarian arm that Musk has called a “criminal” organization and sought to dismantle. Employees at the agency are being placed on administrative leave, and Trump’s team has frozen foreign aid distributed by the office.

    The damage Trump and Musk are doing will reverberate through charities, businesses and communities across the U.S., DeLucia predicts. But up to this point, she thinks people have been too stunned to mount the type of protests that spilled into the street when Trump was elected for his first term in 2016.

    “Why aren’t we marching? Where is everybody?” DeLucia said she’s wondered lately. “I think it was kind of shell shock.”

    More:’Don’t let democracy die’: Anti-Trump protesters rally in cities across US

    She’s hopeful that Wednesday’s gathering is a sign that people are again raising their voices.

    Savannah Bellem, a volunteer who brought snacks and drinks to the Harrisburg demonstration, said it was her first time participating in a protest. Back in 2016, she thought the answer was to wait out Trump’s term.

    Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, speaks to a group of protestors in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 5, 2025. The demonstration against President Donald Trump’s administration was part of nationwide rallies coordinated by the 50501 movement.
    “It’s four years — what can happen?” the New Cumberland resident remembers telling her husband.

    She now sees that attitude as naive, and this time around she feels a heightened sense of urgency. A gay couple in her family are frightened they could lose their child. She said she is angry that her young daughter now has fewer rights than she did at the same age.

    “We’re not going to stand for it,” she said. “We need to get back more into taking care of our community and each other.”

    State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta also emphasized the importance of local action in a speech to the crowd, urging them to focus on city councils and school boards in addition to politicians in Washington, D.C.

    “There is no one, and I mean it, no one, coming to save us,” the Philadelphia Democrat said. “But here is the good news, my friends: We are going to save ourselves.”

    Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania capital bureau investigative journalist.