Russian police detain Pussy Riot activists for hanging pride flags around Moscow
The activist group erected the rainbow flags on President Vladimir Putin's birthday to draw attention to his administration’s treatment of LGBTQ people.

A rainbow flag erected on the Culture Ministry building in Moscow on Oct. 7, 2020. LGBTQ flags were also placed on the Presidential Administration of Russia , Federal Security Service (FSB), district police and Supreme Court buildings on Russian President Vladimir Putin's 68th birthday. Pussy Riot Facebook via AP


Oct. 9, 2020, 
By Dan Avery

At least five members of the punk rock activist group Pussy Riot were detained by Russian police on Thursday, one day after the collective hung rainbow Pride flags on key government buildings in Moscow.

In a Facebook post shared Wednesday, the group said it held the action on Oct. 7, President Vladimir Putin’s birthday, to draw attention to his administration’s poor treatment of Russia’s LGBTQ community.

“It’s important to say thank you on your birthday,” it sarcastically wrote to the 68-year-old leader. “Thank you for your words and deeds.”

The post listed seven demands for the government, including legalization of same-sex relationships, the repeal of Russia’s “gay propaganda” ban and an investigation into the reported kidnappings and killings of gay and bisexual men in Chechnya.

It demanded an end to harassment of same-sex families and organizations advocating for the LGBTQ community and a law banning discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

The group also called for Oct. 7, Putin’s birthday, to be declared LGBTQ Visibility Day.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina told The Independent that the group was able to evade security by dressing as maintenance workers and claiming to be in charge of birthday decorations.

“It was wildly comic, but the message is serious,” she said. “You can’t win by banning love. If you are the person who is smashing the hands of lovers as they walk hand in hand, you’ve already lost.”

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Pussy Riot members arrested after their recent protest action - raising rainbow pride flags to mark Putin’s 68th birthday.
The flags appeared at the beginning of working day at the headquarters of FSB (ex KGB), Putin’s presidential administration, Supreme Court, Ministry of Culture and Police.
Pussy Riot said the rainbow flags were birthday presents for the president. They were gifted as symbols of the “lack of love and freedom” in Russia.
This is a video Maria Alyokhina’s arrest - right in the entrance to TV Rain, just before her scheduled TV interview

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1 in 5 Russians want gays 'eliminated,' survey finds

The group shared photos of members erecting the flags, which they said were symbols of the “lack of love and freedom” in Russia.

“The state should not interfere in the life of the LGBTQ community. But if it does, then the community can intervene in the life of the state,” the group wrote on Facebook.

It called it a “symmetrical response,” referencing a term Putin used in response to the United States military testing a cruise missile in 2019.

The flags were hung in five locations on Wednesday — Putin’s executive offices, the Ministry of Culture, the Supreme Court building, the Basmanny district police station and the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s main security agency and the successor to the KGB.

Pussy Riot called the buildings among “the most important symbols of Russian statehood.”

The following day police detained members on charges of violating statutes about public demonstrations, according to MediaZona, a news site founded by Alyokhina and fellow Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.

Alyokhina was arrested outside the studios of independent television channel Dozhd, also known as TV Rain, just before she was scheduled for an interview. Nina Nikulshina was arrested in Taganka and taken to Meshchansky police station, as were Vasily Andrianov and Elizaveta Diederich. Another Pussy Riot activist, Alexander Sofeyev, was taken in after investigators staked out his apartment for more than a day, according to Russian-language site Avtozak Live reports. They managed to get inside after Sofeyev’s landlord opened the door for them.

MediaZona also reported that Radio Liberty journalist Artem Radygin was detained during the flag-hanging at the FSB building.

Pussy Riot, an activist collective and performance art group, was founded in 2011 to promote feminism and LGBTQ rights under the Putin regime.

A year later, the group staged a guerrilla performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Days later, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were arrested and convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” They each spent nearly two years in a high-security prison.Russia’s LGBTQ community has been a frequent target for Putin, who earlier this year mocked the U.S. embassy in Moscow for flying the rainbow flag during Pride month, suggesting it “revealed something about the people that work there.”


Russian voters back referendum banning same-sex marriage

In 2013, the country banned the distribution of "propaganda" that promoted "nontraditional sexual relationships” to minors, which has been used to outlaw Pride demonstrations and pro-LGBTQ publications and organizations. In the run-up to the 2014 Sochi Games, Putin insisted the law “does not harm anyone” and that there is no institutional discrimination against gays in Russia.

In July, Russian voters supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as exclusively a union between one man and one woman, a measure strongly supported by Putin.

Wednesday’s protest came just days after Russian State media reported authorities were going to start arresting gay men who used surrogates for “baby trafficking,” according to The Independent.

Egyptian officials systemically abuse and torture gays, rights group says
“Egyptian authorities seem to be competing for the worst record on rights violations against LGBT people in the region,” according to Human Rights Watch.


Oct. 26, 2020, By Daniel Villarreal

Malak el-Kashif, a political activist and transgender woman living in Egypt, was arrested at her Cairo home last March after participating in a protest and was then subjected to verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Egyptian authorities for months, according to Human Rights Watch. She says she was placed in solitary confinement at a men’s prison for 135 days, where she was refused medical treatment.

“I suffered the worst verbal abuse I have ever encountered by police officers, and they forbade me from going to the bathroom for two days. They subjected me to a forced anal exam. They sexually assaulted me,” el-Kashif, 20, told the international human rights group. “Solitary confinement was the worst thing that ever happened to me; it was really affecting my mental health. I still have post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia. I’m not the person I was.”

'You can't be out': Gay Egyptians continue to fear persecution

Eight Egyptian men convicted for "inciting debauchery" following their appearance in a video of an alleged same-sex wedding party leave the defendant's cage in a courtroom in Cairo, Egypt on Nov 1, 2014.Hassan Ammar / AP file

El-Kashif is one of 15 people who shared harrowing stories of abuse with Human Rights Watch for its recently published report “Egypt: Security Forces Abuse, Torture LGBT People.” The report’s main findings include arbitrary arrests of people thought to be LGBTQ; entrapment of gay and bisexual men through social networking and dating apps; and torture and prolonged detainment of sexual and gender minorities in state custody.

“Egyptian authorities seem to be competing for the worst record on rights violations against LGBT people in the region, while the international silence is appalling,” Rasha Younes, an LGBTQ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated in the report. "Egypt has unabashedly continued to target and abuse LGBT people simply for who they are.”

‘I was prepared to end my life’

For its report, Human Rights Watch interviewed LGBTQ people who had been prosecuted between 2017 and 2020 under “debauchery” and “prostitution” laws, as well as two defense attorneys. Their accounts allege systemic abuse throughout the judicial system in Egypt, one of approximately 70 countries around the globe that criminalizes homosexuality — whether explicitly or just in practice.

All but three of those prosecuted went by pseudonyms in the report, for fear of retaliation by Egyptian authorities. Some of them reported being denied food and medication, while others shared stories of forced virginity tests and anal exams. Egypt is one of seven countries that uses forced anal exams to “prove” a person’s homosexuality, according to Human Rights Wat

Hossam Ahmed, a 27-year-old transgender man arrested in 2019 and released last month, was placed in a women’s prison where he was given an ID card that said “female” and denied his gender-affirming treatment, according to the report. He was allegedly forced to sleep on “a rotten and smelly mattress” and would sometimes go days without food.

Ahmed Alaa, 24, was arrested in 2017 by officers in civilian clothing who did not inform him of the reason for his arrest, according to the report. Alaa said he was verbally abused and threatened by officers who then put him in solitary confinement.

“I was prepared to end my life if they prolonged my detention,” he told Human Rights Watch.
A change in power

While LGBTQ people have long been subjected to homophobia and transphobia in Egypt, Younes said the situation worsened after its current president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, took power in 2014.

“Before el-Sissi took power, they had some breathing room to at least exist in public without being attacked, arrested or harassed,” Younes said of sexual and gender minorities. “At the same time, LGBTQ rights activists have formed strong networks of resistance and solidarity that allowed them to protect each other from violence.”

A major turning point came in September 2017 following a concert in Cairo by Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila, whose lead singer is openly gay. After several young people in the audience waved a rainbow flag during the weekend concert, public prosecutor Nabil Sadek ordered an investigation, which led to seven arrests the following Monday, according to The New York Times.

A fan of Lebanese alternative rock band Mashrou' Leila holds a rainbow flag during their concert at the Ehdeniyat International Festival in Ehden town, Lebanon, on Aug. 12, 2017.Jamal Saidi / Reuters file

The incident was then followed by a crackdown in which police and state security agencies arrested over 100 suspected LGBTQ people over the following year using social media to entrap them, according to an NPR interview with Dalia Abdel Hameed, head of the gender program for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a human rights organization.

Homosexuality is not explicitly a crime in Egypt, according to Paula Gerber, a human rights law professor at Monash University in Australia. Gerber said LGBTQ people are often arrested and charged with prostitution, a broadly written law criminalizing any activity that offends “religion,” “national unity” or “social peace.”

Even if legal charges against LGBTQ people are dismissed, merely being accused of an LGBTQ-related offense can cause individuals to be ostracized from their families, lose their social safety nets or be denied access to employment, medical care or legal protection, according to Younes.

Government monitoring

Younes said Egyptian authorities actively monitor social media and city streets to crackdown on LGBTQ people and others who are protesting or organizing for civil rights, all of which are labeled as subversion or even terrorism.

Human Rights Watch said police will set up fake profiles masquerading as gay men on dating apps like Grindr and social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp in an attempt to meet in public or learn the names and meeting places of other queer people for future raids and arrests. Officers will also look through arrested people's phones with the same goal in mind.

As a result, LGBTQ people find it difficult to date, talk online or seek medical care, said Khalid, an Egyptian native and founder of No Hate Egypt, an online group that uses social media to educate Egyptians about the country’s LGBTQ issues and culture. Khalid asked that his real name not be used because of fear that Egyptian officials may try to track him and other members of his group online.

Fearing surveillance and monitoring, Khalid added, people are guarded with their names, personal photographs or identifying details online. Queer people will often talk for months online before agreeing to meet in public, because — in addition to police — they know that rapists, thieves and blackmailers also target gay men on the apps, knowing they won’t go to police if they’re attacked, according to Human Rights Watch.

Someone wanting to meet in public may get stood up by a reluctant partner several times before the partner finally feels safe enough to actually appear, Khalid said. LGBTQ Egyptians also fear obtaining medical care, such as tests for sexually transmitted illnesses, or will sometimes marry other queer people of the opposite gender, to avoid being outed and persecuted.

A political wedge issue

Khalid said the Egyptian government has long used anti-LGBTQ arrests to whip up support among Islamic conservatives while distracting citizens from poor living conditions and other civil rights abuses.

Increasingly, he said, Egyptian leaders are parroting “moral” and pseudoscientific rhetoric used by Christian conservatives in the West, accusing queer people of recruiting children and destroying humanity or claiming homosexuality as a disease or mental illness that harms the immune system and infects others.

Younes said the Egyptian government regularly denies reports of human rights abuses as completely fabricated.

“If there weren’t problems that warrants reporting, we won’t go looking for them,” Younes said. “Instead of working to remedy these systemic problems, Egypt claims that any criticism and call for accountability directed at its governance is a western imposition and threat to its internal order.”

Egypt, according to the report, has “repeatedly rejected recommendations by several countries to end arrests and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” and at the United Nations Human Rights Council in March, Egyptian officials refused to recognize the existence of LGBTQ people.

Neither the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., nor its consulate general in Los Angeles responded to NBC News’ requests for comment.

A traumatic turning point

A particular point of trauma for LGBTQ Egyptians around the world, Khalid said, is the June 2020 suicide of Sarah Hegazy, a once outspoken Egyptian queer feminist who was detained by el-Sissi's National Security Agency in 2017 for raising a rainbow flag at the Mashrou’ Leila concert.

Hegazy said police molested her, tortured her with electric shocks and threw her into solitary confinement. After being fired from her job and rejected by her family, Hegazy fled to Canada, where she suffered PTSD and panic attacks which intensified amid the death of her mother soon after. She eventually took her own life, leaving a suicide note.

“The experience has been harsh and I’m too weak to resist. To the world, you’ve been greatly cruel, but I forgive,” Hegazy wrote in the note, which was published in part in The New York Times.

People attend a memorial for Sarah Hegazy in Amsterdam on June 19, 2020.

Romy Arroyo Fernandez / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Khalid said queer Egyptians worldwide share a sense of shock and trauma around her story, knowing it can happen to themselves and their friends.

Younes said supporters of LGBTQ rights — whether private individuals or government officials — have a role to play in protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in Egypt.

She encourages the international community to support, promote and empower Egyptian LGBTQ organizations by helping to provide funding and secure platforms where they can connect and organize. As for governmental support, Younes said nations around the world “have a moral and human obligation to hold Egypt accountable to its egregious abuses” in public and private forums.

“Egypt’s partners and those who provide assistance to its abusive security forces should halt their support instead of turn a blind eye,” she said, “so that LGBTQ people can trust that they can turn to their government for protection, not torture.”

Nigerian judge throws out case against 47 men facing homosexuality charge
The case dates back to 2018 and had widely been seen as a test of the country's laws banning same-sex relationships.

Chris Agiriga, 23, one of the men arrested on charges of public display of affection with members of the same sex, walks with a friend on the streets of Mushin in Lagos, Nigeria, on Feb. 14, 2020.

Temilade Adelaja / Reuters file


Oct. 27, 2020, 12:52 PM MDT / Source: Reuters

LAGOS - A judge in a Nigerian court on Tuesday threw out a case against 47 men charged with public displays of affection with members of same sex, ending what had widely been seen as a test of the country's laws banning same-sex relationships.

The Nigerian law banning gay marriage, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and same-sex "amorous relationships," prompted an international outcry when it came into force under former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.

The men were arrested in a police raid on a Lagos hotel in the city's Egbeda district in 2018. Police said the men were being initiated into a gay club, but the defendants said they were attending a birthday party.

Prosecution and defense lawyers in the case had told Reuters nobody had yet been convicted under the law, which led to the case of the men being widely seen as a test case that could help to establish the burden of proof.

Prosecutors failed to attend Tuesday's hearing at the federal high court in Lagos, having previously failed to present some of their witnesses in a case that had been adjourned on several occasions.
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Justice Rilwan Aikawa struck out the case and said he had done so due to the "lack of diligent prosecution".

The specific charge the men faced, relating to public displays of affection, carries a 10-year prison sentence.

Outside the court, many of the men smiled and cheered, including dancer James Brown who, smiling, said: "I am free. It means a lot of good things."

Under Nigerian law, defendants in a case that is struck out can be re-arrested and arraigned again on the same charge, whereas that is not possible in cases that have been dismissed.

Taxi driver Onyeka Oguaghamba, a father-of-four who said he merely drove people to the party, said he was happy the case had been struck out but disappointed that it was not dismissed entirely.

"I am not happy, because I'm looking for the matter to end in a way that people will see me and believe what I have been saying from the beginning," he said, adding that the decision meant he could be charged again.

Oguaghamba and others previously told Reuters they had been stigmatized as a result of the raid and a televised news conference held by police in which they were identified the day after their arrest.

Chris Agiriga, another of the men, said the striking out of the case would not help him to be reconciled with his family who had rejected him over the matter.

"Since the past two years, this has caused a lot of damage in my life," he said.

Emmanuel Sadi, a program officer with rights group the Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS), said the outcome of the case raised questions about the law used to charge the men.

"You can't even build a case around it," he said. "I hope they (the government) realize how redundant it is as a law, and they are open to removing or repealing it," he said.

Homosexuality is outlawed in many socially conservative African societies where some religious groups brand it a corrupting Western import. Gay sex is a crime in countries across the continent, with punishments ranging from imprisonment to death.

N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James developing 'long' list of Trump actions for Biden to undo
The Democratic official also told NBC News she is reviewing legal options in case the president contests the election results.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James takes her oath of office 

on Jan. 1, 2019.Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images file

Oct. 30, 2020, By Allan Smith NBC

New York Attorney General Letitia James says her office is preparing a substantial list of legal actions for a potential Biden administration to begin quickly reversing Trump administration initiatives, she told NBC News in an interview.

"We're preparing a list. And the list is long," she said Thursday. "We'll have a team of individuals, again, working on reversing all of the bad regulations and laws that have been put forth ... We will work with the Biden administration to ask them to file stays in a number of cases that are pending in the courts all across this country."

James, a leading Democratic state attorney general, said she and her colleagues are also reviewing "legal options to determine what action, if any" state attorneys general will take should the election results be contested.

In her second year as the top law enforcement official in New York, James has battled the Trump administration on everything from environmental regulations and immigration enforcement to its handling of the census. More recently, she's been involved in litigation over Postal Service slowdowns.

Meanwhile, because of the Trump Organization's footprint in New York City, James has been at the forefront of legal action against President Donald Trump's family business.

Her office's yearslong probe into Trump's charitable foundation led to its dissolution. More recently, her investigation into whether the president's business had inflated the value of its assets for the purposes of tax breaks and loans came to a head earlier this month when Eric Trump, the president's son and an executive at his business, sat for a pre-election deposition.

The younger Trump had pushed back on having to testify before the election, but after a judge ruled against his effort, he agreed to sit for questioning on whether the Trump Organization had committed fraud. He called the legal effort "a continued political vendetta."

James said she could not get into the details of his testimony, adding, "We're in the midst of discovery and they're handing over documents and that is ongoing."

As for Eric Trump's claim of political bias — something the president has repeatedly claimed about James and her predecessors in the office — the attorney general said she doesn't "pay a lot of attention to all the noise and all the critics."

"I keep hearing this. I know Eric Trump has accused me of bias. The NRA have accused me of bias," she said, acknowledging a separate high-profile case her office is in the midst of with the National Rifle Association. "A number of elected officials have accused me of bias. Some Republican attorneys general have accused me of political bias. I just put my head down and just go to work."

"Again, politics is not an issue that I will tolerate in my office," she said. "It's based on allegations, primarily from individuals within the Trump administration who have come forward, and laid bare a pattern of illegality and misconduct, which requires an investigation on the part of regulators, i.e., the New York State Office of Attorney General."

She pointed to the Trump Organization investigation her office has ongoing having stemmed from allegations made by the president's convicted former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who leveled such allegations of asset valuation malfeasance while testifying before Congress in early 2019.

As for rumors she may run for mayor of New York City or governor of the state, James said she had "no comment."

"But you know that it's no secret, I was considering running for mayor when this opportunity availed itself, and here I am as the attorney general," she said. "That's not something that I was focused on or planning on."

"There's a phrase that my mother used to say and that is, 'You plan and God laughs,'" she added. "So, I'm no longer planning. I'm just working."

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News.

'Quick, quick, quick': Trump rushes McSally at rally as she fights to hold her Senate seat

The president hurried Arizona Sen. Martha McSally before calling up three out of state politicians to address the crowd.

All spoke longer than McSally did — as did another guest speaker Trump called on, Nigel Farage of Britain's Brexit party. Trump did not rush any of those four.

'They don't want to hear this, Martha!': Trump rushes McSally on stage during Arizona rally OCT. 29, 2020 01:54 VIDEO

Oct. 28, 2020, 6:57 PM MDT
By Vaughn Hillyard and Dareh Gregorian

President Donald Trump offered a not-very warm welcome to Sen. Martha McSally on Wednesday at his campaign rally in Arizona, where McSally, also a Republican, is fighting to hold on to her seat.

After saying she was "respected by everybody" and "great," Trump rushed McSally to the stage at an airport rally in Goodyear to say a few words.

"Martha, just come up fast. Fast. Fast. Come on. Quick. You got one minute! One minute, Martha! They don’t want to hear this, Martha. Come on. Let’s go. Quick, quick, quick. Come on. Let’s go," Trump said.

McSally spoke for just over a minute, and said she was "proud" to work with the president — something a moderator could not get her say during her debate with Democratic challenger Mark Kelly earlier this month.

After McSally spoke, Trump called up a trio of politicians from out of state to speak — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Of the three, only McCarthy, the House Republican leader, is running for re-election in November. All spoke longer than McSally did — as did another guest speaker Trump called on, Nigel Farage of Britain's Brexit party. Trump did not rush any of those four.

Polling in Arizona has shown McSally consistently behind Kelly. Earlier Wednesday, McSally published an op-ed article in which she said she will vote for Trump. She had long asserted that she has the right to a "secret ballot" when asked if she's voting for him.

Trump told reporters during another trip to Arizona last week that he thought McSally was "doing fine" and that he didn't think their fates in the state were tied together.

"I think we're very separated, but we support each other fully," he said. "But I’ve never been a believer that somebody — that you’re tied together. I don’t — I don’t believe that. I know I’m doing very well. I don’t know what her numbers are. I haven’t looked. But I hope she does well."

McSally was appointed to her seat in 2018 by Gov. Doug Ducey after Sen. Jon Kyl announced he was retiring.

The Washington Post reported last week that Trump told donors at a fundraiser it was going to be "very tough" for Republicans to keep control of the Senate because there were some he'd have a hard time supporting.

"There are a couple senators I can't really get involved in. I just can't do it. You lose your soul if you do," an attendee quoted him as saying.

Vaughn Hillyard is a political reporter for NBC News.
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller reveals aggressive second-term immigration agenda
The immigration hardliner says the president would fight to limit asylum, target "sanctuary cities," expand the "travel ban" and cut work visas.

VIDEO
Trump adviser Stephen Miller lays out plans for aggressive immigration agenda

OCT. 30, 20200 3:11

Oct. 30, 2020, By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller has fleshed out plans to rev up Trump's restrictive immigration agenda if he wins re-election next week, offering a stark contrast to the platform of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In a 30-minute phone interview Thursday with NBC News, Miller outlined four major priorities: limiting asylum grants, punishing and outlawing "sanctuary cities," expanding the so-called travel ban with tougher screening for visa applicants and slapping new limits on work visas.


The objective, he said, is "raising and enhancing the standard for entry" to the United States.

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AUG. 25, 2020  05:51 VIDEO

Some of the plans would require legislation. Others could be achieved through executive action, which the Trump administration has relied on heavily in the absence of a major immigration bill.

"In many cases, fixing these problems and restoring some semblance of sanity to our immigration programs does involve regulatory reform," Miller said. "Congress has delegated a lot of authority. ... And that underscores the depth of the choice facing the American people."

Miller, who serves in a dual role as an adviser in the White House and to Trump's re-election campaign, stressed that he was speaking about second-term priorities only in his capacity as campaign adviser.

Immigration has been overshadowed by surging coronavirus case numbers and an economy shattered by a nearly yearlong pandemic, but it was central to Trump's rise to power in the Republican Party, and Miller has been a driving force for the administration's often controversial policies to crack down on illegal migration and erect hurdles for aspiring legal immigrants.

Miller has spearheaded an immigration policy that critics describe as cruel, racist and antithetical to American values as a nation of immigrants. He scoffs at those claims, insisting that his only priority is to protect the safety and wages of Americans.

And he said he intends to stay on to see the agenda through in a second term if Trump is re-elected.

An immigration freeze

In the near term, Miller wouldn't commit to lifting the freeze on new green cards and visas that's set to expire at the end of the year, saying it would be "entirely contingent" on governmental analysis that factors in the state of the job market.

Asked whether he would support reinstating the controversial "zero tolerance" policy that led to families' being separated, Miller said the Trump administration is "100 percent committed to a policy of family unity," but he described the policy as one that would keep families together in immigration detention by changing what is known as the Flores settlement agreement.

Over the past year, the administration has sought to amend the Flores agreement, which says children can't be held over 20 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. If it succeeds, immigrant families could be detained indefinitely as they await their day in immigration court.
Keep asylum down

On Trump's watch, asylum grants have plummeted. Miller wants to keep it that way. He said a second-term Trump administration would seek to expand "burden-sharing" deals with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that cut off pathways to the U.S. for asylum-seekers.

"The president would like to expand that to include the rest of the world," Miller said. "And so if you create safe third partners in other continents and other countries and regions, then you have the ability to share the burden of asylum-seekers on a global basis."

Supreme Court to hear cases on Trump’s immigration policiesOCT. 19, 202006:16


Punish and outlaw sanctuary cities

"Another major priority with a big contrast is going to be really cracking down aggressively on sanctuary cities," Miller said.
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He noted that the administration has withheld some grants to sanctuary cities. In a second term, he said, it would continue the battle with two new initiatives.

First, Miller said, Trump would push for legislation filed by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., which would punish jurisdictions that refuse to turn over arrested people who are in the U.S. illegally to ICE for deportation. Second, Trump would go a step further with a law to "outlaw the practice," thereby making it mandatory for authorities to turn those migrants over to the feds.
Expand travel ban, screenings

Miller said another priority would be "building on and expanding the framework that we've created with the travel ban, in terms of raising the standard for screening and vetting for admission to the United States."

That includes enhanced screening methods and more information-sharing among agencies to vet applicants seeking admission into the country. The U.S. already looks for ties to terrorism and extremist groups. Miller wants to go further by vetting the "ideological sympathies or leanings" of visa applicants to gauge their potential for recruitment by radicals.

That may include changing the interview process, adding interviews or talking to people close to applicants about their beliefs.

"That's going to be a major priority," he said. "It's going to require a whole government effort. It's going to require building a very elaborate and very complex screening mechanism."
Curtail work visas

Miller said a second-term Trump administration would finalize efforts to curtail use of guest-worker programs like H-1B visas, including by eliminating the lottery system used in the process when applications exceed the annual quota and by giving priority to those being offered the highest wages.

He said Trump would pursue a "points-based entry system" for American visa grants aimed at admitting only those who "can contribute the most to job creation and economic opportunity" while preventing "displacement of U.S. workers."
Biden responds

Asked to respond, Biden's director of Latino media Jennifer Molina said, "We are going to win this election so that people like Stephen Miller don't get the chance to write more xenophobic policies that dishonor our American values."

Biden himself weighed in Friday afternoon, saying in a statement that the agenda outlined by Miller represents "four more years of hateful rhetoric and division" and policies that demonstrate "cruelty and exclusion" rather than hope.

"This agenda is designed to do one thing only: divide our communities with cheap, xenophobic rhetoric, and demonize those seeking to make legitimate asylum claims in the United States to find a life of safety for themselves and their children," he said.


Sahil Kapur is a national political reporter for NBC News.
Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff contributed.

'American fiasco': House coronavirus oversight report rips Trump admin's pandemic response
The interim report, which collected information the panel has gathered since April, charges that the administration bungled the response in numerous ways.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a close Biden ally, at the Capitol last month. 

Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images file


Oct. 30, 2020, By Dareh Gregorian and Haley Talbot

A House subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis blasted the Trump administration's response to the pandemic in a report Friday, calling it "among the worst failures of leadership in American history."

"The virus is a global scourge, but it has been an American fiasco, killing more people in the United States than in any other country," said the report, which the Democratic-run subcommittee of members of both parties released four days before Election Day.

The interim report collected information the panel has gathered since April to charge that President Donald Trump and members of his administration bungled the nation's response to the virus in numerous ways. That includes the president's attempts to downplay the crisis, political interference in the health response, and the mismanagement of funds that Congress secured to combat the pandemic, which opened the door to potentially billions of dollars of fraud while people and businesses in need were shortchanged, the report said.

“This report exhaustively documents what has long been clear: The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been a tragic failure," said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the subcommittee's chair and a top ally of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Biden has campaigned in part on Trump's handling of the pandemic, which has sickened over 9 million and killed almost 230,000 across the country. Trump maintains that he has done "a great job" with the crisis and insists the country is "rounding the corner" in the fight against the virus.

The ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, dismissed the report as "partisan" in a statement, saying it underscores how Democrats have used the panel "to attack President Trump and politicize the pandemic to the detriment of the American people."

Among the report's findings:

"President Trump’s decision to mislead the public about the severity of the crisis, his failure to listen to scientists about how to keep Americans healthy, and his refusal to implement a coordinated national plan to stop the coronavirus have all contributed to devastating results."
The administration "engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference during the pandemic, repeatedly overruling and sidelining top scientists and undermining Americans’ health in an attempt to benefit the president politically." The subcommittee's investigators "identified at least 61 instances in which Trump administration officials injected politics into public health."

"The administration’s implementation of relief programs passed by Congress has also been marred by fraud, waste, and abuse," the report says, and the subcommittee's "investigations identified more than $4 billion in potential fraud in small business programs."

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service mishandled stimulus payments to low-income Americans, leaving those payments unclaimed by 9 million people who might be eligible but never registered to receive them.

The report said the subcommittee is still "investigating questionable contracts and loans that may be hindering the nation’s ability to quickly produce and distribute protective equipment and other supplies needed to contain the virus."

The report includes recommendations on how to solve the issues the panel discovered going forward. These include increasing transparency on the spread of the virus and providing consistent public health advice; implementing a science-based national response plan and ending what it said were efforts to silence or punish federal employees who insist on following science; ensuring low-income people know about their eligibility for aid; and putting additional oversight in place to lessen the risk of fraud and waste in small-business loans and other relief measures.

"While we cannot bring back the more than 225,000 Americans we have lost to this disease, I hope that this report will serve as a wake-up call to make the improvements needed to prevent further unnecessary deaths and deprivation that will occur if the response continues on its current course,” Clyburn said.

Scalise praised Trump's handling of the crisis, calling the Democrats' claims "baseless" and saying Trump's efforts has put the country "on a path to a full recovery."

"From testing to vaccine development to safely reopening our economy and schools, President Trump followed the science to develop national plans that have been rapidly implemented to address an ever-changing situation," he said.


Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Haley Talbot is an associate producer in the NBC News Washington bureau.

A Top Trump health official warns of 'draconian measures' if America doesn't mask up
In other coronavirus news: Trump sidelined experts early in pandemic, there are too many new cases in Philadelphia to track, and teens and tweens are volunteering for Covid-19 vaccine test trials.

Coronavirus testing czar: 'Nobody's waving the white flag' to pandemic

OCT. 28, 2020  05:38



Oct. 28, 2020, By Corky Siemaszko

The Trump administration’s Covid-19 testing czar warned Wednesday that local governments may be forced to impose “draconian measures” if Americans don’t start taking safety precautions seriously and the coronavirus crisis worsens.

“We still can control this” by wearing masks, social distancing and being careful around the holidays, Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of health, said on NBC’s “Today” show.


“But if we don’t do those things, it may force local officials or government officials in the states to have more draconian measures because cases will go up if we don’t make a change.”

Admiral Brett Giroir, U.S. assistant secretary for health, demonstrates a Covid-19 test during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House on Sept. 28, 2020.

Ken Cedeno / Pool via Getty Images

Giroir, who spoke out as Covid-19 was spreading across the United States at the fastest rate since the start of the pandemic, also contradicted President Donald Trump’s repeatedly false claims that increased testing is the reason for the uptick in reported coronavirus cases.

“Yes, we’re getting more cases identified, but the cases are actually going up, and we know that too because hospitalizations are going up,” Giroir said. “Now, the (daily) peak was in the 70,000s, in July, we’re at about 42, 43,000 now, so we’re much less in July. But those are going up, those are real. And we do know that deaths are increasing, unfortunately.”

Actually, the current level of new cases is eclipsing the July levels, according to the latest NBC News analysis.

Nearly 74,000 cases were reported on Tuesday. And the U.S. has been averaging 71,000 new cases per day over the past week, which is the most in any seven-day stretch since the crisis started.

Giroir’s dire words came with Election Day less than a week away and as Trump, whose re-election chances have been imperiled by his administration’s much-criticized response to the pandemic, has been campaigning hard in states like Wisconsin and Nebraska that are currently coronavirus hot spots.

Trump, who contracted Covid-19 along with first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron, has continued to downplay the dangers of a virus that has infected 8.9 million in the U.S. and killed nearly 228,000, according to the latest NBC News statistics.

“Covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid cases,” Trump fumed Tuesday before a tightly packed, mostly mask-less crowd Tuesday in Michigan. “Do you ever notice they use the word ‘cases?’ Like Barron Trump has a case, sniffles, one Kleenex and he was better.”

Trump has also been insisting without evidence that “we are rounding the turn” on the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy listed the battle to “defeat” Covid-19 as one of the Trump administration’s “accomplishments from first term.”

“From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Administration has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals in academia, industry and government to understand, treat and defeat the disease,” it said.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called Trump's handling of the pandemic "backward" and said that pushing for the economy to reopen before the crisis was contained has made a bad situation worse.

“He doesn't understand that in order to fix the economy, first you have to control the virus," Trumka said on MSBNC. "And to control the virus, you have to protect workers so that you don't continue to spread the virus and continue to have hot spots. He thinks, if you open the economy, everything will go away and be great for everyone.”

Trump has been accused of dragging his feet on dealing with the virus, dismissing the advice of experts, promoting unproven cures and politicizing the use of masks by refusing until just recently to wear them in public.

Asked by NBC’s Savanah Guthrie if he was frustrated by Trump’s mixed messaging on masks, Giroir answered, “Look, I have a job to do, like the other docs.”

“We’re going to try to give the American people the best evidence possible,” he said.

“And what I want to emphasize is that we will have a vaccine,” Giroir added. “We will have a safe and effective vaccine. It may be this month, it may be next month, it may be in December, this will not go on forever.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a frequent Trump target, made some of the same points Giroir did in a Tuesday interview on Diane Rehm’s “On My Mind” podcast.

“We’ve had 80-plus thousand infections the other day, and we’re averaging between, on a seven-day basis, over 60,000 infections,” Fauci said. “And if you look at the map of the country, of the counties, states and cities in which you have an increase in test positivity, that more than 30 of those states are going in the wrong direction.”

The White House itself has not been immune. Besides the first family, more than a dozen Trump aides, allies and others came down with infections after Trump hosted a Sept. 26 gathering in the Rose Garden to introduce Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee for Supreme Court justice.

Fauci said that when it comes to masks, the White House doesn’t practice what it preaches.

"I believe what we’re seeing is that the White House is saying to wear masks,” Fauci said. "The only trouble is, when you look at what actually happens at these congregate settings, not a lot of people are wearing the masks.”

Corky Siemaszko is a senior writer for NBC News Digital.

Biden vows to pass LGBTQ rights legislation in first 100 days
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised to make the Equality Act a "top legislative priority" should he win Tuesday’s election.

Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Del., on Oct. 28, 2020.

Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images

Oct. 29, 2020, By Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised to make passing the LGBTQ rights legislation known as the Equality Act a top priority, hoping to sign what would be a landmark civil rights law within 100 days should he win Tuesday’s election.

Biden, a leading voice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights as vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, also pledged in an interview with the Philadelphia Gay News to expand queer rights internationally by making equality a centerpiece of U.S. diplomacy should he win the election and assume office in January.

Biden has championed the Equality Act before, but his priority for the issue is significant given the urgency of the coronavirus pandemic and a host of other executive orders and regulatory actions that would compete for attention in the early days of a Biden administration.

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He outlined his agenda for LGBTQ rights in an email interview with Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal, a nationally known advocate for gay rights since the 1970s.

“I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days - a priority that Donald Trump opposes,” Biden said of the Republican incumbent he is challenging.

The Trump administration opposed the Equality Act, saying it would “undermine parental and conscience rights,” and has also restricted queer rights in the name of religious liberty. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Biden’s interview.

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equality Act in 2019, but the legislation stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Biden would need the Democrats to hold the House and take control of the Senate to ensure passage.

The Equality Act would protect U.S. citizens from discrimination based on sexual identity and gender identity by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the most revered accomplishments of the civil rights movement, which banned discrimination based on race, religion, sex and national origin.

On the international front, Biden also promised to defend American diplomats who speak out for LGBTQ rights in countries that are hostile to queer people and promised to use “America’s full range of diplomatic tools,” including private diplomacy, public statements and United Nations agencies, to promote equality.

“I’ll stand up to bullies and once more put human rights at the center of America’s engagement with the world,” Biden said.

New Zealand votes to legalize euthanasia but likely not marijuana use

NOT SO FAST VOTES ARE STILL COMING IN

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday after the results were released that she had voted in favor of both referendums.

New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, results released Friday showed. Mark Baker / AP

Oct. 30, 2020, 3:53 AM MDT
By The Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealanders voted to legalize euthanasia in a binding referendum, but preliminary results released Friday showed they would likely not legalize recreational marijuana use.

With about 83 percent of votes counted, New Zealanders emphatically endorsed the euthanasia measure with 65 percent voting in favor and 34 percent voting against.

The "No" vote on marijuana was much closer, with 53 percent voting against legalizing the drug for recreational use and 46 percent voting in favor. That left open a slight chance the measure could still pass once all special votes were counted next week, although it would require a huge swing.

The two referendums represented significant potential changes to New Zealand's social fabric, although the campaigns for each ended up being overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and a parallel political race, in which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her liberal Labour Party won a second term in a landslide.

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern wins 2nd term in election landslide

OCT. 19, 202002:08

In past elections, special votes — which include those cast by overseas voters — have tended to track more liberal than general votes, giving proponents of marijuana legalization some hope the measure could still pass.

Proponents of legalizing the drug were frustrated that Ardern wouldn't reveal how she intended to vote ahead the Oct. 17 ballot. Many believed an endorsement by Ardern could have boosted support for the measure, but she said she wanted to leave the decision to New Zealanders.

Ardern said Friday, after the results were released, that she had voted in favor of both referendums.

Conservative lawmaker Nick Smith, from the opposition National Party, welcomed the preliminary marijuana result.

"This is a victory for common sense. Research shows cannabis causes mental health problems, reduced motivation and educational achievement, and increased road and workplace deaths," he said.

But liberal lawmaker Chlöe Swarbrick, from the Green Party, said they had long assumed the vote would be close and they needed to wait until the special votes were counted.

"We have said from the outset that this would always come down to voter turnout. We've had record numbers of special votes, so I remain optimistic," she said. "New Zealand has had a really mature and ever-evolving conversation about drug laws in this country and we’ve come really far in the last three years."

Proponents had argued the measure would reduce profits for gangs and improve social outcomes for indigenous Maori.

  

A cyclist rides past a sign in support of making marijuana legal in Christchurch, New Zealand. Preliminary results on Friday showed it was unlikely the measure would pass. Mark Baker / AP

The marijuana measure would allow people to buy up to 14 grams (0.5 ounce) a day and grow two plants.

Other countries that have legalized or decriminalized recreational marijuana include Canada, South Africa, Uruguay, Georgia plus a number of U.S. states.

The euthanasia measure, which would also allow assisted suicide and takes effect in November 2021, would apply to adults who have terminal illnesses, are likely to die within six months, and are enduring "unbearable" suffering.

Other countries that allow some form of euthanasia include the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Belgium and Colombia.