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Maine’s immigrants anxious for Trump to clarify mass deportation plans [Video]
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Maine’s immigrants anxious for Trump to clarify mass deportation plans [Video]

President-elect Donald Trump made several sweeping claims about immigration and deportation during his reelection campaign.At a rally in Pennsylvania, he said, “The day I take the oath of office, the migrant invasion ends, and the restoration of our country begins. The United States is now an occupied country.”Then, in Springfield, Ohio, he spoke about migrants again, saying, “They emptied their jails in Venezuela, emptied their criminals. They emptied the nests. They call them nests of bad people. They’re all now in the United States, and they’re now taking over cities. It’s like an invasion from within. We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country, and we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.” Early Tuesday morning, Trump appeared to confirm via Truth Social that he is prepared to declare a national emergency over immigration and that he will use military assets to carry out a mass deportation program.Trump has also announced picks for his administration that signal he wants to fulfill his promise for mass deportations, including immigration hardliner Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan as Border Czar.While a policy plan has not been officially outlined yet, the threat of deportations and cuts in funding for social services has been a concern in Maine’s immigrant communities, which are made up of people at varying stages of the legal process.”There’s a whole population of people who are really panicking,” Mufalo Chitam, the executive director of the Maine Immigrant’s Rights Coalition, said. “They are fearful for themselves but more so for their families.”Maine has been a destination for thousands of asylum seekers in recent years. The Migration Policy Institute reports Maine is home to more than 56,000 foreign-born residents, which is about 4% of the state’s population.According to the Pew Research Center, Maine had about 5,000 immigrants living in the state without documentation as of 2022.Chitam’s nonprofit in Portland helps immigrants with their legal, social and economic needs. ProsperityMe, led by Claude Rwaganje, does similar work, helping with education, housing and employment.”Maine’s economy depends on immigrants to continue operating their businesses. Without immigrants they will be shutting down,” Rwaganje told Maine’s Total Coverage.A report from the American Immigration Council and the University of Southern Maine reveals that in 2019, immigrants in Androscoggin County strengthened the local job market by keeping or creating 200 manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise been moved out of the area or eliminated completely.”You cannot go to any single business without finding an immigrant working there,” Rwaganje said.Chitam explained, “It may be your neighbor. It may be your child’s friend. It may be where you go for groceries. It may be who’s supporting your parents in a nursing home. It may be where you get your favorite food or the hospital where you go. Everyone’s going to be affected.”Both Rwaganje and Chitam hope Maine’s lawmakers will advocate for their immigrant neighbors and for the social services, like housing, that new Mainers rely on.”It should not be red state or blue state,” Rwaganje said. “It should be humanity, individuals, families, children, women, elderly, how we can support them.”Maine’s assistant GOP leader, Rep. Katrina Smith, said she understands the need for housing but acknowledges that Mainers have expressed feeling left out of previous housing initiatives.”I think we need to take a look at that and make sure that we’re using our tax dollars to pay and to help Maine people first,” Smith said.Smith visited the country’s northern and southern border regions in recent months, noting afterward a need for the ‘rule of law.’In her upcoming term, Smith said she would like to be able to help new Mainers who are actively working through the legal immigration process. A specific concern for Chitam is what will happen to her clients whose asylum is still pending.”I would advocate for the process to continue, to speed up that process, to have maybe certain courts that only deal with that and get this seen through,” she said. “If they’re in the process we should complete that process, see where they’re at. Overall, we have a lot of unknowns as to what’s going to happen, and we’ll wait for the federal government to tell us what course to take.”Maine’s 132nd legislature will be officially seated in the first week of December. President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on Tuesday, Jan. 20.”The country is still together. The country has not fallen apart, and we survived the previous four years,” Rwaganje said. “We’ll survive again.”

Orleans Public Schools gets help from city with budget deficit [Video]
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Orleans Public Schools gets help from city with budget deficit [Video]

The Orleans Parish School Board with the help of officials from the City of New Orleans has made up a portion of a deficit in the school district’s budget. An accounting error left the district with a $36 million deficit. The error was found in recent weeks; however, the district’s financial struggles date back years. The school board approached the City of New Orleans in 2018 regarding money they believed the district was owed through taxes. In 2019, the school board sued the city for those funds, and Monday’s agreement was the beginning of a discussion on terms for a settlement. It was announced in a news conference that the city of New Orleans would provide a total of $20 million to the school district to help bridge the gap in their funding problem. The first $10 million would be allocated this year, with an additional $10 million on April 1, 2025. The school district is still working to find the additional revenue for the remaining $16 million needed. The city of New Orleans already invests in school-based resources for New Orleans students. In addition to that, Harrah’s promised nearly $6 million for programs as well as $4 million for Thrive Kids NOLA. City officials said their priority is investing in the school district for years to come, agreeing to a 10-year partnership. The partnership aims to avoid financial issues in the future and help the school district going forward.

What to know about the congressional push to expand some Social Security benefits [Video]
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What to know about the congressional push to expand some Social Security benefits [Video]

The House has passed legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, pushing it one step closer to becoming law.The Social Security bill on Tuesday won bipartisan support in the House, 327-75, in what is now the lame-duck period for Congress. The bill now heads to the Senate, where passage is not assured despite considerable support.Heres what to know about the legislation and what could happen next.What does the bill do?Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset that currently limit Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people, according to reports from the Congressional Research Service.The policies broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive a government pension of their own.People who worked in state, local and federal government jobs have been heavily affected by the policies, as have teachers, firefighters and police officers, according to lawmakers and advocates.Both provisions would be repealed by the bill, thereby increasing Social Security payments for many.What would be the cost of expanding the benefits?The budgetary effect of the legislation is considerable, adding an estimated $195 billion to federal deficits over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.That means more fiscal strain on the Social Security Trust funds, which were already estimated to be unable to pay out full benefits beginning in 2035. Some conservatives in the House attempted to block the legislation due to its cost.Supporters of the bill in the House acknowledged the fiscal impact but said it was a matter of fairness.For more than 40 years, the Social Security trust funds have been artificially propped up by stolen benefits that millions of Americans paid for and that their families deserve, said Reps. Garret Graves, R-La. and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., the lead sponsors of the bill in the House.The time to put an end to this theft is now, they said.What happens next?The Social Security bill has 63 sponsors in the Senate a significant tally because 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation in the chamber.Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the lead sponsors, have urged colleagues to take up the bill as soon as possible.But the Senate has a jam-packed schedule in the remaining weeks of the year, with government funding, disaster relief and an annual must-pass defense bill likely to eat up considerable floor time.If passed by the Senate, the bill would go to President Joe Biden. If the bill is signed into law, the changes would be effective for benefits payable after December 2023.But if the bill doesnt pass the Senate by Jan. 3, when a new session of Congress begins, it would expire and supporters would have to start over.

What to know about the congressional push to expand some Social Security benefits [Video]
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Small Business Funding

What to know about the congressional push to expand some Social Security benefits [Video]

The House has passed legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, pushing it one step closer to becoming law.The Social Security bill on Tuesday won bipartisan support in the House, 327-75, in what is now the lame-duck period for Congress. The bill now heads to the Senate, where passage is not assured despite considerable support.Heres what to know about the legislation and what could happen next.What does the bill do?Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset that currently limit Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people, according to reports from the Congressional Research Service.The policies broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive a government pension of their own.People who worked in state, local and federal government jobs have been heavily affected by the policies, as have teachers, firefighters and police officers, according to lawmakers and advocates.Both provisions would be repealed by the bill, thereby increasing Social Security payments for many.What would be the cost of expanding the benefits?The budgetary effect of the legislation is considerable, adding an estimated $195 billion to federal deficits over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.That means more fiscal strain on the Social Security Trust funds, which were already estimated to be unable to pay out full benefits beginning in 2035. Some conservatives in the House attempted to block the legislation due to its cost.Supporters of the bill in the House acknowledged the fiscal impact but said it was a matter of fairness.For more than 40 years, the Social Security trust funds have been artificially propped up by stolen benefits that millions of Americans paid for and that their families deserve, said Reps. Garret Graves, R-La. and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., the lead sponsors of the bill in the House.The time to put an end to this theft is now, they said.What happens next?The Social Security bill has 63 sponsors in the Senate a significant tally because 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation in the chamber.Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the lead sponsors, have urged colleagues to take up the bill as soon as possible.But the Senate has a jam-packed schedule in the remaining weeks of the year, with government funding, disaster relief and an annual must-pass defense bill likely to eat up considerable floor time.If passed by the Senate, the bill would go to President Joe Biden. If the bill is signed into law, the changes would be effective for benefits payable after December 2023.But if the bill doesnt pass the Senate by Jan. 3, when a new session of Congress begins, it would expire and supporters would have to start over.