Politics
Liberal US cities change course, now clearing homeless camps
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Makeshift shelters abut busy roadways, tent cities line sidewalks, tarps cowl broken-down vehicles, and sleeping luggage are tucked in storefront doorways. The fact of the homelessness disaster in Oregon’s largest metropolis can’t be denied.
“I’d be an fool to take a seat right here and let you know that issues are higher immediately than they have been 5 years in the past with regard to homelessness,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler stated just lately. “Individuals on this metropolis aren’t silly. They’ll open their eyes.”
As COVID-19 took root within the U.S., individuals on the road have been largely left on their very own — with many cities halting sweeps of homeless camps following steerage from federal well being officers. The dearth of remediation led to a state of affairs that has spiraled uncontrolled in lots of locations, with annoyed residents calling for motion as excessive types of poverty play out on metropolis streets.
On this aerial photograph taken with a drone, tents housing individuals experiencing homelessness are arrange on a vacant car parking zone in Portland, Ore., Dec. 8, 2020.
(AP Photograph/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)
Wheeler has now used emergency powers to ban tenting alongside sure roadways and says homelessness is the “most necessary challenge dealing with our neighborhood, bar none.”
More and more in liberal cities throughout the nation — the place individuals residing in tents in public areas have lengthy been tolerated — leaders are eradicating encampments and pushing different strict measures to deal with homelessness that will have been unheard of some years in the past.
In Seattle, new Mayor Bruce Harrell ran on a platform that known as for motion on encampments, specializing in extremely seen tent cities in his first few months in workplace. Throughout from Metropolis Corridor, two blocks price of tents and belongings have been eliminated Wednesday. The clearing marked the top of a two and a half week standoff between the mayor and activists who occupied the camp, working in shifts to maintain homeless individuals from being moved.
BIDEN’S HOMELESSNESS CZAR WILL ONLY WORSEN NATION’S CRISIS
In Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser launched a pilot program over the summer time to completely clear a number of homeless camps. In December, the initiative confronted a essential check as lawmakers voted on a invoice that will ban clearings till April. It failed 5-7.
In California, house to greater than 160,000 homeless individuals, cities are reshaping how they handle the disaster. The Los Angeles Metropolis Council used new legal guidelines to ban tenting in 54 areas. LA mayoral candidate Joe Buscaino has launched plans for a poll measure that will prohibit individuals from sleeping outside in public areas if they’ve turned down gives of shelter.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in December within the crime-heavy Tenderloin neighborhood, which has been floor zero for drug dealing, overdose deaths and homelessness. She stated it’s time to get aggressive and “much less tolerant of all of the bull—- that has destroyed our metropolis.”
In Sacramento, voters might resolve on a number of proposed homeless-related poll measures in November, together with prohibiting individuals from storing “hazardous waste,” resembling needles and feces, on private and non-private property, and requiring the town to create hundreds of shelter beds. Metropolis officers within the space are feeling rising stress to interrupt liberal conventions, together with from a conservation group that’s demanding that 750 individuals tenting alongside a 23-mile (37-kilometer) pure hall of the American River Parkway be faraway from the world.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, center-right, walks with Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee III, center-left, earlier than a information convention Feb. 28, 2022, in Washington.
(AP Photograph/Alex Brandon, File)
Advocates for the homeless have denounced aggressive measures, saying the issue is being handled as a blight or an opportunity for reasonable political positive aspects as a substitute of a humanitarian disaster.
Donald H. Whitehead Jr., govt director of the Nationwide Coalition for the Homeless, stated not less than 65 U.S. cities are criminalizing or sweeping encampments. “In all places that there’s a excessive inhabitants of homeless individuals, we began to see this as their response.”
Portland’s homeless disaster has grown more and more seen in recent times. Through the space’s 2019 point-in-time rely — a yearly census of kinds — an estimated 4,015 individuals have been experiencing homelessness, with half of them “unsheltered” or sleeping exterior. Advocates say the numbers have seemingly considerably elevated.
Final month, Wheeler used his emergency powers to ban tenting on the perimeters of “high-crash” roadways, which embody about 8% of the full space of the town. The choice adopted a report displaying 19 of 27 pedestrians killed by vehicles in Portland final yr have been homeless. Individuals in not less than 10 encampments got 72 hours to depart.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY HOMELESS COUNT TO BEGIN AFTER COVID-19 SHUTTERED LAST YEAR’S EVENT
“It’s been made very clear persons are dying,” Wheeler stated. “So I method this from a way of urgency.”
Wheeler’s prime adviser — Sam Adams, a former Portland mayor — has additionally outlined a controversial plan that will drive as much as 3,000 homeless individuals into large non permanent shelters staffed by Oregon Nationwide Guard members. Advocates say the transfer, which marks a serious shift in tone and coverage, would in the end criminalize homelessness.
“I perceive my solutions are huge concepts,” Adams wrote. “Our work to this point, mine included, has … failed to supply the sought-after outcomes.”
Oregon’s Democratic governor rejected the concept. However Adams says if liberal cities don’t take drastic motion, poll measures that crack down on homelessness might emerge as a substitute.
That’s what occurred in left-leaning Austin, Texas. Final yr voters there reinstated a ban that penalizes those that camp downtown and close to the College of Texas, along with making it a criminal offense to ask for cash in sure areas and instances
Frank, who’s experiencing homelessness, sits in his tent in Portland, Ore., subsequent to the Willamette River on June 5, 2021.
(AP Photograph/Paula Bronstein, File)
Individuals who work with the homeless urge mayors to search out long-term options — resembling everlasting housing and addressing root causes like habit and affordability — as a substitute of non permanent ones they are saying will additional traumatize and villainize a susceptible inhabitants.
The pandemic has added issues, with homeless-related complaints skyrocketing in locations like Portland, the place the variety of campsites eliminated every week plummeted from 50 to 5 after COVID-19 hit.
The state of affairs has affected companies and occasions, with employers routinely asking officers to do extra. Some want to transfer, whereas others have already got. Oregon’s largest annual golf event, the LPGA Tour’s Portland Basic, relocated from Portland final yr on account of security issues associated to a close-by homeless encampment.
James Darwin “Dar” Crammond, director on the Oregon Water Science Heart constructing downtown, advised the Metropolis Council about his expertise working in an space populated with encampments.
Crammond stated 4 years in the past the most important safety issues have been vandalism and occasional automotive break-ins. Now workers typically are confronted by “unhinged” individuals and compelled to sidestep discarded needles, he stated.
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Regardless of spending $300,000 on safety and implementing a buddy system for employees to soundly be outside, the division of the U.S. Geological Survey is trying to transfer.
“I don’t blame the campers. There are a number of different choices for housing. There’s a plague of meth and opiates and a world that provides them no hope and little help,” Crammond stated. “In my opinion, the place the blame squarely lies is with the Metropolis of Portland.”
In New York Metropolis, the place a homeless man is accused of pushing a lady to her demise in entrance of a subway in January, Mayor Eric Adams introduced a plan to start out barring individuals from sleeping on trains or driving the identical traces all night time.
Tents line the sidewalk on SW Clay St. in downtown Portland, Ore., Dec. 9, 2020.
(AP Photograph/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)
Adams has likened homelessness to a “cancerous sore,” lending to what advocates describe as a unfavourable and inaccurate narrative that villainizes the inhabitants.
“Discuss to somebody on the road and actually simply hear a bit bit about their tales — I imply, truthfully, homelessness can occur to any one in every of us,” stated Laura Recko, affiliate director of exterior communications for Central Metropolis Concern in Portland.
And a few query whether or not the harder method is authorized, citing the 2018 federal court docket determination generally known as Martin v. Metropolis of Boise, Idaho, that stated cities can’t make it unlawful for individuals to sleep or relaxation exterior with out offering ample indoor options.
Whitehead, of the Nationwide Coalition for the Homeless, thought the landmark ruling would drive elected officers to start out creating long-term fixes and creating sufficient shelter beds for emergency wants. As a substitute, some areas are ignoring the choice or discovering methods round it, he stated.
“If cities change into as artistic about options as they’re about criminalization, then we might finish homelessness tomorrow,” he stated.
Politics
Appeals court rules Texas has right to build razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration: 'Huge win'
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas has the right to build a razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration into the Lone Star State.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the ruling on X, saying President Biden was “wrong to cut our razor wire.”
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” the Republican leader wrote.
Wednesday’s 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for Texas to pursue a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of trespassing without having to remove the fencing.
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It also reversed a federal judge’s November 2023 refusal to grant a preliminary injunction to Texas as the state resisted federal efforts to remove fencing along the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.
U.S. Border Patrol agents cut an opening through razor wire after immigrant families crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee during the president-elect’s first term, wrote for Wednesday’s majority that Texas was trying only to safeguard its own property, not “regulate” U.S. Border Patrol, and was likely to succeed in its trespass claims.
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Duncan said the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected its concerns that a ruling by Texas would impede the enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.
A Venezuelan immigrant asks Texas National Guard troops to let his family pass through razor wire after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)
He said the public interest “supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control” and ensuring that federal immigration law enforcement does not “unnecessarily intrude into the rights of countless property owners.”
Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “huge win for Texas.”
“The Biden Administration has been enjoined from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s border fencing,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We sued immediately when the federal government was observed destroying fences to let illegal aliens enter, and we’ve fought every step of the way for Texas sovereignty and security.”
Migrants attempt to cross the southern border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in February. (David Peinado/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The White House has been locked in legal battles with Texas and other states that have tried to deter illegal immigration.
In May, the full 5th Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can keep a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people in the country illegally.
Politics
Rep. Katie Porter obtains temporary restraining order against ex-boyfriend on harassment allegations
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) secured a temporary restraining order Tuesday against a former boyfriend, saying in dozens of pages of court filings that he had bombarded her, as well as her family and colleagues, with hundreds of messages that she described as “persistent abuse and harassment.”
Porter, 50, alleged in a filing with Orange County Superior Court that her ex-boyfriend Julian Willis, 55, was contacting her and her family with such frequency that she had a “significant fear” for her “personal safety and emotional well-being.”
Judge Stephen T. Hicklin signed a restraining order Tuesday barring Willis from communicating with Porter and her children until a mid-December court hearing. He also barred Willis from communicating about Porter with her current and former colleagues.
In the court filing, Porter said that Willis had been hospitalized twice since late 2022 on involuntary psychiatric holds and had a history of abusing prescription painkillers and other drugs.
She said in a statement to The Times that Willis’ mental health and struggles with addiction seemed to have gotten worse since she asked him in August to move out of her Irvine home. She said she sought the court order after his threats to her family and colleagues “escalated in both their frequency and intensity.”
“I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs,” Porter said.
Willis declined to comment. He will have an opportunity to file a legal response to the temporary restraining order and challenge Porter’s allegations.
Porter is leaving the House of Representatives in January after losing in California’s U.S. Senate primary in March. She has been discussed as a front-runner in the 2026 governor’s race in California after Gov. Gavin Newsom is termed out, but has not said whether she will launch a campaign.
The 53-page court filing, first reported by Politico, included 22 pages of emails, text messages and other communications among Porter, family members and colleagues who had received messages from Willis, as well as messages that Willis sent to Porter’s attorney and to her political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The filing also included messages between herself and Willis’ siblings as they discussed trying to help him during his psychiatric holds and while he was staying in a sober-living facility.
Porter said that since she ordered Willis to move out, he had sent her more than 1,000 text messages and emails, including texting her 82 times in one 24-hour period in September, and 55 times on Nov. 12 before she blocked his number.
Porter said in the filing that her ex-boyfriend had “already contacted at least three reporters to disseminate false and damaging information” about her and her children, which she said “poses a serious risk to [her] career and personal reputation.”
The filing includes an email that Porter said Willis sent to her attorney late Monday, in which Willis said he had visited Porter’s son at college in Iowa and told him that he would “bring the hammer down on Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Another screenshot shows Willis telling Porter’s attorney that he would file a complaint about Porter, who has children ages 12 and 16, with child protective services.
One of Porter’s congressional staff members received a text message from Willis saying he would “punish the f—” out of him if he did not agree to “cooperate” with a New York Times reporter and Willis’ attorneys, according to a screenshot included in the court document.
Willis previously made the news in 2021, when he was arrested after a fight that broke out at a Porter town hall at a park in Irvine.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
Politics
Homan taking death threats against him ‘more seriously’ after Trump officials targeted with violent threats
Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan reacted to news of death threats against Trump nominees on Wednesday and said he now takes the death threats he has previously received seriously.
“I have not taken this serious up to this point,” Homan told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner on “The Story” on Wednesday, referring to previous death threats made against him and his family.
“Now that I know what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I will take it a little more serious. But look, I’ve been dealing with this. When I was the ICE director in the first administration, I had numerous death threats. I had a security detail with me all the time. Even after I retired, death threats continued and even after I retired as the ICE Director. I had U.S. Marshals protection for a long time to protect me and my family.”
Homan explained that what “doesn’t help” the situation is the “negative press” around Trump.
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President Elect Donald Trump, left, and new appointed Tom Homan, right (Getty)
“I’m not in the cabinet, but, you know, I’ve read numerous hit pieces. I mean, you know, I’m a racist and, you know, I’m the father of family separation, all this other stuff. So the hate media doesn’t help at all because there are some nuts out there. They’ll take advantage. So that doesn’t help.”
Homan’s comments come shortly after Fox News Digital first reported that nearly a dozen of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and other appointees tapped for the incoming administration were targeted Tuesday night with “violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” prompting a “swift” law enforcement response.
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The “attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,’” according to Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”
Sources told Fox News Digital that John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for UN ambassador, were among those targeted. Brooke Rollins, who Trump has tapped to be secretary of agriculture, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, separately revealed they were also targeted.
Threats were also made against Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee, GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s family.
Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
Homan told Fox News that he is “not going to be intimidated by these people” and “I’m not going to let them silence me.”
“What I’ve learned today I’ll start taking a little more serious.”
Homan added that he believes “we need to have a strong response once we find out is behind all this.”
“It’s illegal to threaten someone’s life. And we need to follow through with that.”
The threats on Tuesday night came mere months after Trump survived two assassination attempts.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report
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