As Americans celebrate freedom nationwide on July 4, some of those charged with preserving that liberty are still living in squalor months after a damning Government Accountability Office report exposed some of the worst conditions, several lawmakers said in a letter to Army brass.

A dozen lawmakers demanded the military branch take swifter action at its stateside bases, including North Carolina’s sprawling Fort Liberty; formerly Fort Bragg.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., whose district includes the 250-square-mile installation, led a recent letter calling on Army Secretary Christine Wormuth to fix “completely unacceptable” conditions, while acknowledging some, however insufficient, progress has been made.

“We need to know whether the Army is doing all it can to quickly implement effective solutions to improve housing conditions like we’ve seen at Fort Liberty/Fort Bragg,” Hudson separately told Fox News Digital.

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“Not only is better quality housing key to help meet recruitment and retention goals, it is critical to ensuring our military’s readiness.” 

The letter, addressed to Wormuth, three generals and a sergeant major, demanded “swift action” to address “substandard indoor environmental conditions” they consider major health risks.

“[They] are contributing to long-term chronic illnesses and growing liabilities. These living environments have become a detriment to our recruiting and retention, as well as the readiness and resiliency of our warfighters,” Hudson wrote along with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., and Greg Pence, R-Ind., brother of the former vice president.

Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, Don Bacon, R-Neb., Brian Mast, R-Fla., August Pfluger, R-Texas, Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., Pat Fallon, R-Texa,s and Dan Bishop, R-N.C., were also party to the letter.

The letter cited a 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on hazardous conditions at 12 unnamed military installations. The report included photos appearing to show feces spilling over the floor of a restroom, water-damaged ceilings and clumps of black mold. 

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Official GAO photo shows squalid conditions in stateside U.S. military barracks. (GAO)

At the time, the GAO determined Pentagon officials had not been able to provide proper oversight and left solutions up to each military branch to rectify.

The timing of the June 24 letter, published on Tuesday by Hudson, suggested some of the issues and evidence in the report had not been properly addressed.

However, the lawmakers added the Pentagon made some progress in its “Strategy for Resilient & Healthy Defense Communities” program, including public commitments to meet external health certification requirements for air, humidity, light and water.

The letter cited corrective actions taken at Fort George G. Meade near Columbia, Maryland, in that regard, lawmakers said.

Smucker said military families in his Lancaster-area district directly expressed to him their concerns about the matter.

He said military families there told him they found the conditions “appalling,” while adding there is no excuse for such “substandard and dangerous” environs.

“The Department of Defense must act without delay to respond to our concerns,” Smucker said.

Fitzpatrick, a former counterintelligence specialist who was embedded with U.S. special forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom, said Wednesday there is no greater calling than military service and that soldiers deserve better.

“Especially at a time when there are people illegally crossing our border and being housed in luxury accommodations, it is of the utmost importance that we make our military families a priority,” Fitzpatrick said.

In the letter, the lawmakers demanded Army officials specify what actions they will take with remaining 2024 funding to address the issues, and asked what is preventing timely health-related upgrades on-base. They also asked for plans to use empirical standards and benchmarks to ensure future progress.

In response to lawmakers’ concerns, a U.S. Army spokesperson agreed enlisted men and women deserve safe, high-quality barracks.

“Army senior leaders are committed to continuing to improve barracks conditions through concrete actions to ensure a living experience that enhances well-being, readiness, recruitment, and retention,” Matt Ahearn said.

Ahearn added Army officials plan to respond directly to the lawmakers.

Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.

The air was muggy, and the afternoon sun baked the streets of the nation’s capital. But when I visited last month, I made a point to walk the two miles from my hotel to the U.S. Capitol instead of taking an Uber, so I could see it in all its glory.

I didn’t have much time for sightseeing, but a pilgrimage to the seat of American government was a must. Since Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of thousands stormed it to try to stop the electoral vote count that would officially make Joe Biden president, the symbol of our democracy has stood as a reminder of how tenuous it is.

Before that wannabe coup, the U.S. Capitol was an abstraction for me, a series of images — that stunning dome, those imposing columns, but especially the magnificent steps — where a bunch of politicians passed laws but mostly grandstanded. Hell, I didn’t even know there was a front and back entrance until I approached from Pennsylvania Avenue. I had been to D.C. before but hit the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and a few other landmarks, not the Capitol.

It’s huge! The white building gleams like a promontory of power, with trees from across the U.S. spread across the grounds below. Its magnetism was such that I paid no attention to the Reflecting Pool, the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial or the Peace Monument below it.

What broke the spell was the people around me.

Filipino men in barongs and Muslim women in hijabs. Argentines joking around in lilting Spanish and Australians with their distinctive garrulous accent. I’m not sure if they were foreign tourists or immigrants, but it was easy to distinguish them from the locals, who rushed toward the rest of their day uninterested in the splendor the rest of us basked in. We lookie-loos used the Capitol as the backdrop for group photos and selfies, paying little attention to the barricades and police officers blocking us from ascending the steps of the West End.

That scene is on my mind on the 248th birthday of this country, especially after the horror show that was last week’s presidential debate between Biden and the man the insurrectionists wanted to keep in office, Donald Trump. All anyone talked about in the immediate aftermath was Biden’s performance, with some, including Democrats, deriding it as akin to the Crypt Keeper from “Tales from the Crypt.”

Biden was no silver-tongued Socrates — but he never has been, and the commander in chief improved as the night went along. Besides, I’ll take his fuddy-duddiness over the dictatorial doom-and-gloom and lies Trump offered that night.

But Biden broke my heart, because he stayed mostly silent while Trump lambasted immigrants as the gravest threat this nation has ever faced. The convicted felon barely bothered to distinguish legal from illegal immigrants. He claimed Biden “open[ed] up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylums, terrorists,” going on to mention “mental institutions” two more times, as if mentally ill people are subhuman. He described the U.S.-Mexico border as “the worst … in the history of the world” and “the most dangerous place anywhere in the world,” which will come as news to residents of Gaza and those on the front lines of the Ukraine war.

When we needed someone to stand up for our nation’s newcomers, to brag about how this country remains a beacon for the tired and poor huddled masses of the world instead of the “failing nation” Trump thinks we are (a point he repeated five times), Biden instead insisted he was far better at cracking down on illegal immigration than Trump made him out to be.

Trump’s most damning line of the night — “I really don’t know what he [Biden] said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either” — was in response to the president mumbling his way through a boast about increasing the number of Border Patrol agents and making it harder to claim asylum.

If Biden won’t stand up to xenophobic bull spouted by a bully, who will?

I’ve lived my life hearing that unchecked immigration, legal or not, will ruin the United States. I’ve never seen this apocalypse come. Nah, it’s been mostly native-born white Americans who keep whining that we’re no longer great, yet do little to make things better, other than moving to Tennessee or Idaho. It’s immigrants and their descendants who have kept the embers of the American way from dying by emphasizing hard work, community and personal responsibility.

Newcomers who want to better their lives are who we should celebrate on the Fourth of July. Yet multiple polls show that a majority of Americans — even Latinos — feel our borders are under assault. The temperature around immigration is even nastier than during the days of Prop. 187, the ballot initiative that California voters passed 30 years ago in an attempt to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants. Back then, people banded together to fight back. Now? Few seem to care.

The weight of it hit me as I walked around the Capitol to see its official entrance, where the insurrectionists invaded on Jan. 6. The sun was setting right behind the dome, casting a long, frigid shadow even on a hot day. Police were everywhere. Metal barricades blocked people from climbing the steps that led to the House of Representatives and the Senate chambers, and the Rotunda. A few tourists lingered alongside me but quickly left.

I approached an unfenced area, and a police officer politely but firmly told me to move on. It felt like a crime scene — and the victims are us.

Both sides of the political aisle claim it’s now evening in America, but I’ll forever remain an optimist. What else can I do? This country exceeded the expectations of my Mexican immigrant parents, and mine. It’s nowhere near perfect, but that’s what makes it so great — the United States belongs to those who work it, those who hope.

The day after my Capitol visit, I walked past the tourist entrance to the White House. The free public tours didn’t start until 9:30 in the morning, but the line to enter wound up and down the gate two hours before. Men in turbans stood next to college students wearing University of Wisconsin T-shirts. English and Spanish and Mandarin filled the air.

The American flags some people sported on their hats or as jewelry didn’t come off as a political statement but rather a symbol of communion. The guards who stood sentry were jovial. There were no complaints, nothing but excitement at the shared joy of what they were about to see.

That is the America I celebrate this Fourth of July — and pray that remains, come election day.

The issue over parental rights and the privacy of trans students in California is brewing as lawmakers seek to limit the authority of public schools in the state. 

Legislators in Sacramento have sent a bill, AB 1955, to Gov. Gavin Newsom, which would bar school districts from notifying parents if their child uses different pronouns or identifies as a gender that’s different from what’s on school records.  

The bill is currently in the enrollment process, but Newsom will have 12 days to sign it into law once he receives it, his office told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. 

During an emotional June 27 hearing on the state Democratic-led Assembly floor, Assemblyman Bill Essayli, a Republican, vehemently opposed the legislation. Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Jim Wood, a Democrat, repeatedly chastised Essayli for speaking off-topic and had his microphone cut off several times. 

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The bill passed by a 60-15 vote. 

“California is leading the nation in assaulting parental rights,” Essayli told Fox News Digital in a statement. “AB 1955 is dangerous and defies common sense by stripping parents of their constitutional and God-given right to raise their children.”

“It’s now up to Governor Gavin Newsom to decide whether he will sign this policy and make the erosion of parental rights one of the central issues in his presidential ambitions,” he added. 

Newsom has appeared to play to a national audience as speculations about a possible presidential bid refuse to go away. Last year, he vetoed a bill that would have required courts to consider whether a parent affirms their child’s gender identity when making rulings on custody and visitation.

A bill Essayli proposed last year, AB 1314, would have done the opposite of AB 1955 by requiring schools to notify parents of changes in their child’s gender identity. The proposal failed to advance from the education committee.

During last week’s debate, things almost got out of hand when Assemblyman Corey Jackson, who is part of the LGBTQ community, had to be restrained as he tried to move toward Essayli following his remarks. 

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California Assemblyman Bill Essayli seen speaking against a bill that would require schools to not tell parents when their child changes their gender identity. (California state Assembly)

There are things young people have a right to decide for themselves when it’s appropriate, Jackson said. 

“What we’ve seen is that we’re neglecting that right that they have,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s a parent’s responsibility to build the type of relationship for a student to be willing to confide in them. We are not an extension of their parenting.” 

Before the vote, Assemblyman Chris Ward, author of AB 1955, said the bill will strengthen families and will allow people to have the “dignity of deciding when they are ready to share some of the most private information about themselves.”

“When you have a policy that requires teachers to do things that they know are not in the best interest of the kids, it causes trauma and damage that experts across the board tell us is true,” he said. 

Corey said he was confident that Newsom will sign AB 1955, while blaming Republicans for instilling “fear and hate.”

“This is politically driven,” he said. “These are not just parents out of nowhere saying this is an issue.”

James Gallagher, the California Assembly Republican Leader, said he has issues with the assumption that telling parents about their child’s gender identity puts students at risk. 

“One of the concerns that I’ve had from the beginning of this legislation is that I feel like it draws almost a default of: ‘School officials and teachers and counselors, they’re always safe and parents are not safe’,” he said last week. “I think we would probably agree on both sides that’s not true.”

A parents’ rights supporter holds up a sign during a Chino Valley Unified School District board meeting at Don Lugo High School in Chino on Thursday night, July 20, 2023. (Getty Images)

The bill came as school districts across California have enacted parent notification policies. Many of the policies have been tweaked after the state sued the Chino Valley Unified School District to halt the enforcement of its mandatory gender identity disclosure policy. 

In March, the district amended the policy and will only mention that a child has requested a change to their student records.