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(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, one of four Latino cabinet members in President Joe Biden’s administration, said on Tuesday he wanted to end raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at workplaces.

“The deployment of mass worksite operations, sometimes resulting in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers, was not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country’s unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers,” Mayorkas wrote in a memo obtained by ABC News. “These highly visible operations misallocated enforcement resources while chilling, and even serving as a tool of retaliation for, worker cooperation in workplace standards investigations.”

Such a change from what was seen under the previous administration is something that policy experts, including Sylvia Puente, president and CEO of Latino Policy Forum, have said may result from Biden having surrounded himself with a more representative cabinet.

Mayorkas has been joined by Secretary Xavier Becerra of Health and Human Services, Secretary Miguel Cardona of the Department of Education and Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman of the Small Business Administration.

“It was about time — the increase in representation that looks like us in the White House, and cabinet levels in Congress, really allows us not to be invisible,” Puente told ABC News. “It really allows us to take our place in our American society.”

Becerra, who made history as the first Latino to lead HHS, discussed with ABC News the importance of representation for all Americans.

“There’s a pride that comes in understanding what you bring to the table, of what your parents taught you and what your forefathers and foremothers did for this country,” Becerra said. “I’m very proud that I bring that to my country. And that’s the heritage that has made the fabric of our country so strong.”

Becerra is the first person in his family to get a four-year college degree, after his parents emigrated from Mexico at a young age. Ultimately, he added, his opportunities have allowed him to help provide opportunities for others.

“It’s about helping people like my dad, who didn’t get past sixth grade, who worked with his hands all his life as a construction worker, a farm worker, so that he could actually have a better [life], at least for his kids,” Becerra said.

“Given that we have this historic number of cabinet officials who are Latino,” Puente said, “it really feels like the administration is living up its profit promise to have equity, to have diversity and to have inclusion.”

Puente said she hopes to see it continue, and not “just in Hispanic Heritage Month,” which spans Sept. 14 to Oct. 15. It’s important for Latinx and Hispanic individuals “to be a part of this ongoing dialogue.”

Barack Obama had a total of six Latino cabinet members.

Educational disparity

Cardona said during a GMA3 interview on Sept. 15 that he hopes to improve access to higher education.

“We want access to higher education for Latino students at the same rate as other students — we want to make sure completion happens,” Cardona said.

While Latinos account for 18.7% of the U.S. population, according to Census data, only 16.4% complete a four-year degree.

“We also want to make sure at the pre-K level that Latino students have access to early childhood education that serves as a foundation,” Cardona added.

The dropout rate among Latino students, according to a 2019 fact sheet from the National Center for Education Statistics, is about 7.7%, which has declined in recent years but still trails Black (5.6%), white (4.1%) and Asian (1.8%) students.

In August, more than 200,000 migrants were encountered crossing the southern border, according to DHS data.

“People really want to come to the U.S. because they feel they can’t make a living in their homeland, or they can’t stay safe in their homeland, or they’re afraid of being murdered in their home,” Puente told ABC News.

After reports of U.S. border patrol agents acting aggressively towards Haitian migrants fleeing their country amid multiple crises, DHS launched an investigation and alerted the department’s Office of Inspector General. Biden condemned the agents’ actions by saying those who confronted the Haitian migrants aggressively “will pay.”

Puente is among those hoping Biden’s words can lead to larger reforms.

“We certainly expect immigration reform,” she added. “We expect the president and vice president to not only continue to elevate the issue, but to really work with Congress. There are so many pieces of immigration that need to be unpacked.”

Late last month, Mayorkas announced the formation of the Law Enforcement Coordination Council, an effort to “institutionalize best practices in law enforcement.”

Mayorkas intends to chair the LECC, the first department-wide body to serve as a governing organization for agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We are bringing a greater, in my opinion, a greater degree of organization, cohesion to [law enforcement policies],” Mayorkas told ABC News at the time.

Biden has said on multiple occasions he will be a leader for all Americans, and organizations and his cabinet members have said they’ll do what they can to help him keep that promise.

“As secretary, I’m going to make sure that when the president says ‘everyone,’ it includes everyone,” Becerra told ABC News. “We’re not going to leave anyone out. I don’t care what corner of the country you’re from, if you exist in the shadows, we’re going to service you. We believe in the people who lift up this country.”

ABC News’ Luke Barr contributed to this report.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Wednesday will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, even as the agency has suspended all federal executions and President Biden has vowed to eliminate capital punishment.

A federal appeals court last year upheld Tsarnaev’s conviction for the 2013 attack that killed three and injured more than 200, but it tossed out the jury-recommended execution on the grounds that procedural errors during the sentencing phase compromised his right to a fair and impartial hearing.

The Biden administration calls the case “one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our nation’s history” and plans to argue before the justices that any discrepancies during the process would not have led the jury to select a different sentence and that an execution must go forward.

“It’s one thing to say that you’re opposed to capital punishment, it’s another for the United States Attorney’s Office to tell the good people in Boston that you’re no longer going to see the death penalty against the Boston Marathon bomber. And, so they didn’t,” said Jeffrey Wall, the former Trump administration acting solicitor general who first led the appeal to reinstate Tsarnaev’s sentence, on why the new administration is continuing to seek death.

The White House would not directly answer when asked by ABC News whether President Joe Biden supports his Justice Department’s case and a federal execution of Tsarnaev.

A Biden administration official pointed to a June statement by White House press secretary Jen Psaki that noted Biden’s “deep concerns” about capital punishment and belief that “the Department should return to its prior practice, and not carry out executions.”

Attorneys for Tsarnaev said their client deserves a new sentencing hearing after an appeals court concluded that the trial judge improperly denied admission of key mitigating evidence and inadequately screened prospective jurors for bias.

The defense said the alleged involvement of Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, in a 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, is critical evidence to suggest he — not Dzhokhar — was the mastermind of the marathon attack and had previously exerted influence over younger accomplices.

“In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Tamerlan robbed and murdered a close friend and two others as an act of jihad,” Tsarnaev’s attorneys write in their brief to the high court. “For Dzhokhar — a teenager well-liked by teachers and peers, with no history of violence — the bombings were the culmination of Tamerlan’s months-long effort to draw him into extremist violence.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died shortly after the attack when he was run over by his brother as the two fled from police following a gunfight.

“If you accept the Eighth Amendment principle that somebody pretty much has a right to bring in almost anything that’s mitigating … if you don’t allow the defendant to bring in this evidence, you’ve basically deprived him of the only defense against the death penalty he was offering,” said Irving Gornstein, director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. “I think that will give [the justices] some pause. Now, enough pause? Probably not. But some pause.”

The defense also said the trial judge failed to expose evidence of bias among potential jurors by not asking specifics about pretrial media exposure, including what they had read, heard or seen about Tsarnaev or the Boston Marathon bombing.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argues that neither error — even if undisputed — would have swayed a jury against death.

“The record definitively demonstrates that respondent was eager to commit his crimes, was untroubled at having ended two lives and devastated many others, and remained proud of his actions even after he had run Tamerlan over and was hiding out alone,” the government writes in its brief. “The jury that watched a video of respondent place and detonate a shrapnel bomb just behind a group of children would not have changed its sentencing recommendation based on Tamerlan’s supposed involvement in unrelated crimes two years earlier.”

The administration’s pursuit of death for Tsarnaev contrasts with President Biden’s 2020 campaign promise that he would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”

No legislation has been put forward, but in July, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a temporary halt to further executions of federal inmates, noting a number of defendants who were later exonerated as well as statistics showing possible discriminatory impact on minorities.

The Supreme Court could reinstate Tsarnaev’s death sentence, or it could hand Tsarnaev a chance at a new sentencing hearing, clarifying rules for jury selection and mitigating evidence in death-penalty cases.

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(WASHINGTON) — Voting rights activists from Mi Familia Vota said after years of being ignored, they are seeing significant investments from politicians trying to reach out to the Latino community. As the largest non-white ethnic group in the United States continues to grow, Latinos have become a focal point for Republicans and Democrats alike.

But Héctor Sánchez Barba, the executive director and CEO of the Latino-focused civic engagement organization Mi Familia Vota, said that Latino voters must be prepared to identify which efforts are performative and what political promises will be kept.

“Nobody has a free ride with the Latino vote,” Sánchez Barba told ABC News. “The important part is this is not a transactional element, just for the Latino vote. It [must be] a serious holistic engagement on Latino priorities.”

The percentage of Latinos who were eligible to vote and did so rose to a historic high of 53.7% in 2020, increasing from 47.3% in 2016, according to CUNY’s Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies.

This research also shows that the number of Latino votes in the 2020 election also increased by 29.8%: from the 12.7 million votes cast in 2016 to approximately 16.5 million in 2020.

Now, the fight for their votes is on ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

President Joe Biden won the majority of Latino voters across the country, but former President Donald Trump scored more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Latino turnout in Texas rose from 1,938,000 in 2016 to 2,972,000 in 2020, the CUNY research shows. That’s a 31.1% increase.

Republicans are now targeting Democratic Latino strongholds throughout the state — like the Rio Grande Valley — which seemingly faltered in 2020. Biden won in most counties, but by less than Hillary Clinton had won them in 2016. Zapata, Starr and Val Verde counties, which previously voted for Democrats, flipped to Trump in 2020.

Democratic representatives from across the state — Colin Allred, Vicente Gonzalez, Filemon Vela, Henry Cuellar, and Lizzie Fletcher — are being threatened by GOP challengers, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

McAllen, a Latino-majority border city in the valley, voted for its first GOP mayor in 24 years.

And in order to flip more seats and hold onto newly acquired seats, Republicans are creating Hispanic community centers across the country. The next one is slated to open in San Antonio, GOP Communications Director Danielle Alvarez told ABC News.

“We just opened in Doral, which is in South Florida,” said Alvarez. “[We were] talking about having “pastelitos” and “cafecito” and having photos of the South Florida community up, and instead of campaign pull-out tables, doing domino tables. Just making it personal.”

They’ve said they have also implemented this strategy with other ethnic groups, like Asian Pacific Americans and Black voters.

She added, “It provides us the ability to not just share our message and our agenda, but for them to have a conversation back and share their values and what they’re hoping to accomplish.”

From there, the RNC can train them to do the on-the-ground organizing for the Republican efforts.

“Most people kind of hear Democrats’ wishful thinking that Texas is going to be purple,” Alvarez said. “We would make the argument that Texas is red and it’s become even more red, since the previous election.”

Alvarez said that the RNC has a strong data operation that can analyze voters and what is important to them. The party’s 2012’s “Growth And Opportunity Report” continues to be an important source of information for the GOP strategy, Alvarez said. The report highlighted the party’s need to campaign among Latino, Black, Asian, and LGBTQ Americans and “demonstrate we care about them, too,” the report states.

Republicans said they hope to combine what they’ve learned to ensure that the new Hispanic-targeted centers hit home with voters.

“We’re lucky that we don’t often have to paint people with broad brushes — we can get down to what moves in individual voter,” said Alvarez.

Overall, Latinos voted less for Democrats in 2020 than they did in 2016, but the demographic still chose Biden over Trump with 58% of the vote.

Despite this, the Democratic National Committee is attempting to quell any Republican progress, reaching back into its playbook that has long won them the “Latino vote.”

Democrats’ I Will Vote initiative has invested $25,000,000 in voter education, voter protection and targeted voter registration and aims to make voting more accessible. With this, they hope to drive new voters — hopefully Democrats — to the polls.

“You’ll see Democrats going out into communities across the country and specifically showing how these bills are going to be impacting their lives: creating jobs, lowering costs for families and cutting taxes for them as well,” said Lucas Acosta, the senior spokesperson and coalitions director at Democratic National Committee.

In 2020, Latinos overall were concerned with their safety, their health amid COVID-19, and the economy, according to Pew Research.

Eight in 10 registered Latino voters rated the economy as their biggest priority at the time — as the pandemic surged on and the unemployment reached a peak of 14.8% in April 2020, the Congressional Research Service reports. It was the highest rate observed since data collection began in 1948.

Latinos comprise 18.7% of the U.S. population, but represent 28.1% of the population in poverty, according to the U.S. Census.

Acosta said Democrats will focus their door-to-door, on-the-ground community-based outreach on Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which promised to “deliver immediate relief for hard-hit Latino families and small businesses, build a bridge towards economic recovery, and reduce poverty in Latino communities by almost 40 percent,” the plan’s fact sheet read.

“Our responsibility is to make sure that voters know who was in the room fighting for that,” Acosta said.

For Latino-targeted voting groups like Mi Familia Vota, they said the focus remains on protecting voters by campaigning against misinformation targeting this sought-after demographic and legislative efforts that make it harder for Latinos to vote.

Republicans across the country have enacted a wave of new voting laws. In September, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a sweeping voting bill into law that restricts counties’ ability to expand options for voting and makes the election process harder for Texans. The law would limit how and when voters can cast ballots by banning overnight early voting hours as well as drive-thru voting.

Voting groups also said ads targeting the Latino community spread false claims about politicians and their platforms. Specifically, they say these misinformation campaigns instilled fear and betrayed the trust of voters. A recent Nielson report showed that Latino consumers are more likely to receive and share fake news on social media when compared to the rest of the population.

“Those policies that they’re promoting are gonna make it way harder for us to go to the polls and have the basic right to vote,” Sánchez Barba said. “And this is not something new. This is something historical, so we’re keeping the Republicans accountable at a very high level.”

Sánchez Barba also called out anti-immigrant language from the right. He said the party has a lot of work to repair a reputation of hate against people of color and Latino folks.

“A lot of these politicians and these parties only show up very last minute when they need the Latino vote,” Sánchez Barba said. “The Latino community doesn’t forget.”

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