Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where the Working Families Party is looking for a candidate to replace Senator John Fetterman.
Working Families Party Seeks to Recruit Candidate Against Fetterman
Earlier this week, the Working Families Party announced it was launching an open process to find a candidate to challenge right-wing Democrat Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) in the primary.
“You never know where you can find a candidate,” Nick Gavio, a Working Families Party spokesman told WESA. “It’s about building a pipeline and engaging people between now and 2028.”
Report: Border Patrol Pulling Out of Charlotte
Last week, the Border Patrol invaded Charlotte, going on a campaign of terror against immigrants in the city. ICE called it “Operation Charlotte’s Web.”
Immigrants and their allies responded in force with over 21,000 students walking out of school on Monday. Tens of thousands of workers took to the streets to protest the operation
Even North Carolina's Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who lives twenty minutes from Charlotte, complained that he had advised the federal government that he did not think the feds needed to be sent into Charlotte.
“If I thought that I needed the president to deploy troops to keep North Carolina safe, I would have considered myself a failure as a state leader,” Tillis told the Charlotte Observer.
Now, Border Patrol agents have told local news outlets that they intend to leave the city.
New Orleans Braces for Border Patrol Immigration Raid
Over 250 Border Patrol agents are expected to invade New Orleans next. From The Times-Picayune:
Details, including the size of the Border Patrol deployment, where in the New Orleans area agents might operate and the timeline of their arrival, have not been finalized, according to multiple people briefed on the plans who requested anonymity because the operation has not been publicly announced.
Still, signs that the metro area could see an infusion of federal agents as soon as late this week spurred frenzied reaction in recent days from officials, advocates and immigration attorneys. One construction company owner has told Hispanic workers not to show up for work beginning on Friday for fear of immigration raids. New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick is set to discuss the operation this week with Border Patrol officials.
"They're coming, so I am going to be a partner," Kirkpatrick said on WBOK Radio Tuesday, adding that her officers would not conduct immigration arrests or question people about their immigration status.
Planning documents reviewed by The Associated Press show 250 Border Patrol agents are poised to focus on neighborhoods and commercial hubs throughout southeast Louisiana, the outlet reported Tuesday. The agents plan to fan out across a region stretching from New Orleans through Jefferson, St. Bernard and St. Tammany parishes north to Baton Rouge and into Mississippi.
The revelations signal that the Trump administration has chosen the Crescent City for what has emerged as a signature piece of its anti-illegal immigration agenda: shock-and-awe raids in Democratic-led enclaves in which agents round up and detain hundreds of people, then move on to other locations.
For more, check out The New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Donate to Help Us Cover Cities Fighting Back Against ICE Raids
Many cities plan to use creative tactics to fight military-scale ICE Raids. Payday hopes to cover those tactics so that other cities facing raids can fight back.
Fighting Book Bans, 630 Librarians in Ohio Unionize
Earlier this week, Payday reviewed the documentary The Librarians, which documents the widespread firings, threats, and violent intimidation faced by librarians across the country as the right wing seeks book bans.
(See our piece "The Librarians Depicts Violent Intimidation as Librarians Fight Book Bans”
The attacks on librarians has led many librarians to get more involved in their unions. This week, over 630 librarians at the Columbus Metropolitan Library system announced that they were unionizing.
“Core values that our library depends on, like intellectual freedom, diversity, equity and inclusion are facing dire threats,” the organizers said in a statement sent to the Ohio Capital Journal. “We need to use our collective voice to defend the freedom to read, the freedom to think and the freedom to be yourself.”
For more, check out Ohio Capital-Journal.
‘Guerrilla-style:’ How a Colorado filmmaker made a documentary about immigrant workers inside Churchill Downs
Finally, Colorado Public Radio has a great profile on the new PBS documentary Backside about immigrant workers employed at the Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is hosted. Its director Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana talks about how he had to film the documentary guerilla-style:
Paz-Pastrana’s work is known for being participatory and allowing subjects of color agency over their narrative. So when he set out to make “Backside,” the workers were his north star.
Paz-Pastrana first gained access to the stable staff, known professionally as grooms, and started building trust in the community with the help of a field producer, who was a former expert groom at Churchill Downs.
“He knew everyone; all the grooms, he knew most of the trainers. And he's a very likable guy,” Paz-Pastrana said. “So him and I would go in and we'd just walk around the backside and meet grooms, and he's like, ‘Hey, he's a filmmaker. He wants to make a film about our story and our work. Would you be interested and will be our point of view?’”
Everyone they talked to said yes. So Paz-Pastrana and the former expert groom kept visiting, and filming, and hoping for the best.
For more, check out Colorado Public Radio.
News & Headlines
- Immigration agents have raided at least 100 car washes across Southern California since June, detaining at least 340 mostly Latino workers
- 'I'm gaining everything out here’ Casino workers enter second month of strike in Shelbyville
- You're not bad at job hunting—30% of job postings are fake
- Staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art petition NLRB for a union vote
- Feds press local governments to cancel public citizenship naturalization ceremonies
- Finally, Sister Joanna Persch prayed the rosary outside the Broadview ICE facility every week since 2007.
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, comments, and complaints to melk@paydayreport.com
