Good morning! Welcome to The Movement from NOTICE News, where we want to see a world that’s driven by human decency, compassion and love—not corporate greed and growth. We’re news for the people, not the profit. 🌹

In today’s newsletter:

• The crisis at the border, briefly explained.

• Donald Trump’s fate goes before the Supreme Court.

• Your daily news roundup

• Some good news: Be glad you’re not this guy.

The crisis at the border, briefly explained

Yesterday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate, along with a handful of Progressive senators, blocked a “compromise” immigration reform bill that left-leaning critics say would have further jeopardized human rights and life along the southern border. Republicans, who demanded this action—before ultimately blocking it—decided their own measure didn’t go far enough. Not to mention, it also would have deprived Trump of one of his most salient talking points.

To understand this incredibly complex story, here are some basic facts:

• Yes, there’s a crisis at the southern border. The border has seen a surge of migrants—better described as refugees—over the past several years. For instance, between 2013 and 2019, the monthly average was 39,000 “encounters” (where refugees are caught and either taken into custody to await a hearing, or immediately expelled). In December 2023 alone, there were 302,000 “encounters.”

• Often unreported in corporate media: that surge is being driven by political and economic instability, particularly in Latin America. Many come from Venezuela (which is undergoing an unprecedented social and humanitarian collapse), and Haiti (which is also experiencing continuing political instability), as well as Ecuador and Nicaragua (which are seeing surges of violence).

• Under both U.S. and international law, these refugees have rights, including the right to be considered for asylum (the legal right to stay in a different country because you were forced to leave your own).

• While migrants wait for their day in court they are usually allowed to wait in the country. Since 2021, some 2.3 million people have been allowed into the country, overwhelming border towns and cities they have been bused to. This is complicated because the surge has created a massive backlog in the U.S. court system.

The proposed fix to this issue would have established a new system for reviewing asylum cases (which is good), but also would have given the president unprecedented authority to effectively shut down the border after a certain number of “encounters” (which is bad). Here’s a good breakdown of what was in the bill.

Migrant rights groups and Progressives condemned the bill for effectively ending the legal right to asylum. Amnesty International said the deal contained “the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in 100 years,” and would “only lead to more suffering, more cruelty, and more death.”

Right-leaning and corporate-sponsored Democrats, eager to expand the Military Industrial Complex, supported the measure in exchange for $60 billion in handouts to Ukraine and another $14 billion to support Israel’s genocide of Gaza. With the collapse of this compromise, it’s unclear what happens to those requests. The Biden administration is now reportedly considering executive action to address the situation at the border, bypassing Congress altogether.

The Supreme Court might disqualify Trump from being president

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments today on a historic case: whether or not disgraced former President Donald Trump is constitutionally disqualified from holding office again.

Just before Christmas, Colorado’s Supreme Court dropped a bombshell opinion ruling that Trump must be removed from the 2024 ballot because, yes, his conduct related to January 6th did amount to insurrection, and, as such, he’s ineligible for the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

That section, passed during Reconstruction, was was designed to keep former Confederates from holding public office. It’s never been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.