“I can’t breathe.” Those were the last words George Floyd uttered before he was killed by a police officer who kneeled directly on Floyd’s neck for seven straight minutes while he lay prostrate on the ground with his hands handcuffed behind his back, in broad daylight.
Floyd’s death comes in the wake of a series of acts of racist violence against African Americans that remind us of the astounding levels of violence and discrimination in the USA that black and brown communities face. This includes the killing of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was shot in her sleep by the police who broke into her apartment, and the killing of Stephon Clark, who was shot and killed in his grandmother’s backyard with nothing but a cellphone in his pocket, and so many more we may never have the chance to hear their names.
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We are in the worst refugee crisis since WWII, with over 21.3 million refugees across the globe. But dozens of hateful anti-refugee bills have been introduced in Congress—and the president has signed an anti-refugee executive order, carrying the force of law. The order bans Syrian refugees; bans visa holders from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen for 90 days; and suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (“USRAP”) for 120 months. At a time when U.S. leadership is vital to protecting lives, the U.S. is abdicating its responsibilities. The executive order signed discrimination into law and amounts to a Muslim ban. Refugees are being scapegoated in the name of national security.
Officials at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) are doing everything they can to jumpstart executions after over a decade without them — and with the largest death row in the country, they could fast track dozens of cases for execution.
AIUSA Group 48 