The policy, first implemented by President Donald Trump in 2019, had mandated that migrants seeking entry into the United States could not immediately gain entry into the country; instead, they were forced to wait in Mexico for the date of their hearing. Photo credit: White House Communications Agency. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual imagery does not imply or constitute endorsement.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a lower court’s ruling and decided in a 5-4 vote that President Joe Biden is allowed to end the Trump Administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MMP).
The policy, first implemented by President Donald Trump in 2019, had mandated that migrants seeking entry into the United States could not immediately gain entry into the country; instead, they were forced to wait in Mexico for the date of their hearing.
Efforts on the part of the Biden Administration to end the policy had been blocked by a lower court after a lawsuit brought about by a coalition of red states led by Texas; it was initially ruled that the Department of Homeland Security’s suspension and eventual termination of the policy had violated federal law.
However, according to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts – who wrote the Court’s opinion on Thursday’s ruling – the Biden Administration did not actually violate the law when they ended the policy.
“The Government’s rescission of MPP did not violate section 1225 of the INA, and the October 29 Memoranda did constitute final agency action,” Roberts said. “8 U.S.C. Section 1225 plainly confers a discretionary authority to return aliens to Mexico during the pendency of their immigration proceedings. The use of the word ‘may’ in the law in question makes clear that contiguous-territory return is a tool that the (DHS) Secretary has the authority, but not the duty, to use.”
From here, the case will be sent back to the lower courts for additional proceedings; while the block on Biden’s attempt to end the policy currently remains in place, Thursday’s ruling likely means it will be lifted in the very near future.
Roberts was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh in siding with the Biden Administration; Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett voted against it.
This Supreme Court ruling highlights how crucial it is for Arizona to elect a strong Governor who will enact our Article 1 Powers & protect our border.
I WILL defend Arizona from threats —both domestic & external.
That starts with finishing the wall. https://t.co/quLmMO0LP5
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) June 30, 2022
.@RepCloudTX reacts to the Supreme Court allowing the Biden administration to terminate Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.
“Just because they upheld the Biden administration to terminate this one policy, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do for the nation.” pic.twitter.com/JZpLkH6aew
— Newsmax (@newsmax) June 30, 2022
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Alito referred to the “Remain in Mexico” policy as a “clear statutory alternative” and that releasing undocumented migrants into the U.S. while awaiting their hearings is in violation of the law.
“Due to the huge numbers of aliens who attempt to enter illegally from Mexico, DHS does not have the capacity to detain all inadmissible aliens encountered at the border, and no one suggests that DHS must do the impossible,” Alito said. “But rather than avail itself of Congress’s clear statutory alternative to return inadmissible aliens to Mexico while they await proceedings in this country, DHS has concluded that it may forgo that option altogether and instead simply release into this country untold numbers of aliens who are very likely to be removed if they show up for their removal hearings. This practice violates the clear terms of the law, but the Court looks the other way.”
The Supreme Court ruling in Biden’s favor comes at a time when illegal crossings at the country’s southern border are at an all-time high. In May 2022 alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents experienced 239,416 encounters with migrants attempting to cross the border, with officials expressing fears that those numbers will only continue to increase throughout the summer.
According to reports, Dr. Carrie Madej and her boyfriend had been flying in a single-engine Piper PA-24 on Sunday when the plane reportedly experienced engine trouble and crashed in a field at approximately 2:15 p.m. just north of Roosevelt Memorial Airport in Warm Springs, a city located in Meriwether County, Georgia. Image credit: JD Rucker Interview / Rumble.
MERIWETHER COUNTY, GA – Controversial Dr. Carrie Madej, an osteopathic physician who has been known for espousing numerous theories said to be conspiracies on subjects ranging from social credit systems, depopulation programs, a ‘New World Order’ and criticism of ‘nanotechnology in COVID-19 vaccines’, has been involved in a mysterious airplane crash on Sunday, June 29 – just days after saying it is a miracle she is still alive.
I will never have a normal job but that’s OK, because I will never have anyone own what I say; they cannot own what is in my mind, they will not tell me what to do, ever. And every day that I live I am like that. And so, because I am like that, and I try to be a messenger for God as best I can, I’m human, but I try my best, I mean, I’m still standing and I’m still here, and that’s a miracle, because of all the things I’ve been through so that’s a testament right there. So I will be here speaking and doing my best until God says it’s time.
According to reports, Madej and her boyfriend Bill had been flying in a single-engine Piper PA-24 on Sunday when the plane reportedly experienced engine trouble and crashed in a field at approximately 2:15 p.m. just north of Roosevelt Memorial Airport in Warm Springs, a city located in Meriwether County, Georgia.
Madej and her boyfriend reportedly survived the crash and were transported to a local area hospital, both in serious condition. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still investigating the incident.
Following an outpouring of concern, an official statement was posted on CarrieMadej.com yesterday saying she is safe and healing.
Out of our love and respect for Dr. Madej, and her loved ones, we have chosen not to publish information appearing on websites, and information she did not consent to for sharing. We also want to be mindful of giving them space and time to heal, as we would to anyone recovering from such a traumatic experience. We also understand the outpouring of concern. However, please rest assured that she is safe, is surrounded by a supportive circle, and is healing as well as can be expected.
An unofficial and yet unconfirmed social media report details the trouble the aircraft and flight may have experienced. Again, the image cited is an unconfirmed post from two different unverified accounts.
An unofficial and yet unconfirmed social media report detailing the trouble the aircraft and flight may have experienced. https://twitter.com/GalileoLGalilei/status/1541805272666079232/ and https://twitter.com/RedFreckles111/status/1541746088683642881
Before giving up medicine and devoting her time to “educating others on vaccines, nanotechnology and human rights,” Madej’s osteopathy practice – a type of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical manipulation of the body’s muscle tissue and bones – had received universally rave reviews from her patients.
However, Madej had since become a polarizing figure in fringe media, known for promoting numerous conspiracy theories including bathing in a concoction of baking soda, epsom salts and borax after being vaccinated for COVID-19 in order to remove the “radiation,” pull out the “poison,” and “take nanotechnologies out of you.”
In her final interview before her death, Madej had “revealed connections between the Metaverse, COVID jabs, and the depopulation agenda of the New World Order,” according to the journalist who had spoken with her, JD Rucker. Rucker also claimed that after the interview, Madej cancelled all future speaking engagements and interviews due to being under investigation by “various medical boards.”
Madej’s most recent interview with Rucker is here and embedded below.
Days After Exposing New World Order in Bombshell Interview, Anti-Vaxx Doctor Carrie Madej’s Plane Mysteriously Crashed https://t.co/pk4AjoaZlH
“The governor and New York State Legislature should begin a process of discarding all property tax abatements that primarily serve the interests of landlords and developers (not tenants), and end the patchwork of other taxes required to make up the subsequent lost revenue from them.”
Adi Talwar
A May evening view of Manhattan over the East River.
The question now arises whether the J-51 property tax abatement should also expire with that of 421a, which expired on June 15, 2022). The inequity of 421a goes without question, yet the inequity of J-51 is obscure. In this report, this obscurity is lifted sufficiently to allow legislators to comfortably allow J-51 to also expire on June 30, 2022. Touting 421a and J-51 as affordable housing’s only game in town is a flawed idea, as other communities demonstrate.
J-51 taxation abatements began in post-war 1955 so that affordable rental housing may have hot water plumbing; afterward it creeped to abate taxes on all building renovations, valued at 8.33 to 12.5 percent of renovation cost every year for 20 years and up to 34 years of no-increase-in-property-taxes, and (for tenants) stabilized rents while the J-51 abatements are in place.
What’s the problem with that? Some think we all must beat the tax monster with a stick, so let’s shout hooray for those who strike a blow! This misguided view ignores the fact that New York City pays its bills with collected revenue, so a loss (i.e., foregone taxes through these abatements) requires an increase for everyone else.
In 1984, it was estimated New York City lost $2 billion over the life of all J-51 abatements in place at the time and the beneficiaries were primarily landlords and developers in Manhattan’s wealthier neighborhoods; hardly equitable (more recent estimates of costs could not be found, but given 38 years of creep opportunity, the amount is likely to rival the $1.8 billion/year lost with 421a.
Why are New Yorkers allowing this to happen to them? Is it to get permanent affordable housing, rental or otherwise? If its permanency, tax abatements are not the answer, as the abatements all have time limits, and stabilized rents only last for the life of the J-51 abatement periods.
There’s a better way. Consensus among affordable housing advocates is that Community Land Trusts (CLTs) uniquely offer permanency, and do so because tenants avoid taking out mortgages for the trust’s land value; they only finance the building’s value and upon sale, they only sell a share of the building value—a tradeoff to secure permanent affordability. Over the years we’ve seen waves of attempts by landlords and developers to game J-51 to push tenants out of their stabilized units, yet they push these tenants to the foreground in J-51 advocacy while stepping back to hide their wealth-generating schemes.
New York City should revisit the hugely successful tax reform advocated by Lawson Purdy (president of the NYC Department on Taxes and Assessments) and Gov. Al Smith that eliminated the tax on building value, thereby making the property tax a land value tax. The result was a building boom in the 1920s that allowed New Yorkers to weather the approaching Depression of the 1930s.
In tandem with Congressional legislators, we should enact 100 percent federal income tax deductibility on all state and local taxes (including taxes on land value, not limited to $10,000) to diminish the inequity of taxing away labor’s wages.
The governor and New York State Legislature should begin a process of discarding all property tax abatements that primarily serve the interests of landlords and developers (not tenants), and end the patchwork of other taxes required to make up the subsequent lost revenue from them. Go back to Purdy’s simple but effective removal of property taxes from buildings, making NYC once again governed by the equitable system of land value taxation–what economists have judged to be the most equitable tax.
Marty Rowland is a social justice lecturer and progressive advocate of affordable housing
The number of drug overdoses inside Department of Homeless Services shelters reached new heights in the second half of 2021, though staff and clients managed to reverse more than 90 percent of the overdoses.
Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office
Naloxone, a rescue dosage for opioid users who overdose.
A worsening nationwide opioid crisis is taking a heavy toll on New York City’s homeless population, with the number of overdoses inside city shelters reaching new heights in the second half of 2021, records show.
Staff working in Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelters recorded 632 overdoses in the six months between July 1 and December 31, 2021—the months immediately following the deadliest fiscal year on record for unhoused New Yorkers—according to statistics shared with City Limits in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. That’s up from 364 in the final six months of 2020 and 359 in the last half of 2019.
Overall, there were 1,091 overdoses recorded in DHS shelters in 2021, a 76 percent increase compared to 2019. In November 2021, the most dangerous month for people who use drugs, at least 106 people overdosed in single-adult shelters, the records show.
The rate of overdose has prompted immediate action from DHS and has spurred calls for more effective federal, state and local strategies to keep drug users safe amid a nationwide spike in overdoses and drug-related deaths fueled mainly by Fentanyl-laced opioids.
Julia Savel, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, which oversees DHS, said staff, emergency responders and other shelter residents managed to reverse 93 percent of the overdoses inside shelters using naloxone nasal spray last year.
“New York City’s pioneering and model approach on harm reduction continues to save lives amid a nationwide opioid crisis and overall pandemic-related increase in substance use challenges,” Savel said, adding that the agency is “equipping all of our shelter sites with dedicated supports to protect the health and safety of our clients.”
Staff submit an incident report for a suspected overdose when they encounter a person who is unconscious and is known to use drugs, as well as when they administer naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan.
In 2021, shelter staff administered naloxone 1,107 times and emergency responders used the spray inside shelters another 137 times, DHS said. Since 2016, staff, residents and emergency workers have administered naloxone about 3,300 times inside shelters.
The agency declined to say how many people who overdosed in shelters died in the second half of 2021 and said the information will be available in the next annual homeless deaths report, which is published around January by DHS and the Health Department and covers the fiscal year that ended six months earlier. The most recent report showed that 237 homeless New Yorkers died from overdoses in the months between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, marking a dramatic rise in fatal drug use and contributing to the deadliest year for unhoused residents since the agencies began compiling their report.
Overall, 640 New Yorkers died while experiencing homelessness in the 2021 fiscal year, the report found. During that period, staff working in DHS shelters submitted 823 overdose-related incident reports.
Overdose statistics reveal the disproportionate impact on New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, who make up less than 1 percent of the city’s population but appear to account for about 10 percent of the overdose death toll.
Across New York City, roughly 2,500 people died from a drug overdose in the 2021 calendar year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control. If the overdose death rate among homeless New Yorkers in the first six months of 2021 continued through the full calendar year, it would mean 1 of every 10 people who died from an overdose was homeless at the time.
Around 16,300 single adults stay in DHS shelters each night, according to daily reports tracked by City Limits. People staying in single adult shelters accounted for the vast majority of overdoses last year, though a rising number of overdoses also occurred in so-called Safe Haven shelters for people coming in from the streets.
Dr. Kelly Doran, an emergency physician who runs the Health x Housing Lab at NYU Langone, said New York City reflects the nationwide rise in overdoses and drug-related deaths among people experiencing homelessness. The Health x Housing Lab focuses on the health benefits of permanent housing and provides evidence-based strategies for improving health, including reducing overdoses, among individuals experiencing homelessness.
Doran urged city, state and federal agencies to make deeper investments in strategies that make it safer for people who use drugs while easing access to opioid replacements and pathways to recovery.
“In the end, the drug supply is unpredictable and unsafe right now, and criminalization doesn’t work,” she said. “We need safer supply and real harm reduction—things like supervised consumption sites.”
Two supervised consumption sites, also known as Opioid Prevention Centers (OPCs) that opened earlier this year have provided people in East Harlem and the South Bronx with a safe setting in which to use drugs while receiving additional medical and recovery treatment.
On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said the city will use $150 million it received as part of a state settlement with opioid manufacturers to open additional OPCs and fund additional harm reduction strategies, including Street Health Outreach and Wellness (SHOW) mobile clinics and syringe exchanges.
DHS officials said they have no plans to introduce OPCs inside shelters where drugs are banned, but said they will use a new grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to establish a Harm Reduction Advisory Council, update policies to make them less punitive and provide Fentanyl test strips to shelter staff.
In an interview with City Limits, DHS Medical Director Dr. Fabienne Laraque said the agency is collaborating with the city Health Department and state agencies to run mobile methadone clinics and increase delivery of methadone, which acts as a non-lethal replacement for opioids.
Laraque urged the federal government to eliminate a requirement forcing physicians to undergo training and obtain a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine, another opioid replacement medication.
"Anybody can prescribe an opioid but not everybody can prescribe buprenorphine," she said.
While comprehensive prevention strategies may lag, city agencies and nonprofits have become adept at responding to an overdose. DHS said it has distributed more than 66,000 naloxone kits in shelters, most of which are run by nonprofit organizations with city contracts. Officials said they have also trained about 14,200 staff members and more than 17,150 shelter residents to administer the life-saving nasal spray. The medication temporarily reverses the effects of an overdose by blocking opioid receptors.
Samuel Irving, a resident of a Bronx shelter, said he recently used naloxone on a man he found unconscious inside the shelter bathroom earlier this month.
“I saw a guy in there almost done,” Irving said. “If I hadn’t hit with the Narcan and called the ambulance, he’d be dead.”
Irving said he received naloxone training while staying at a veterans shelter and carries a kit with him because he frequently encounters people who use heroin and other opioids.
Edwin J. Torres/NYC Mayor’s Office
An overdose prevention kit.
City Limits talked with nonprofit staff members at three shelters in Queens and Manhattan who said workers and residents have encountered people who have overdosed and intervened with naloxone.
“It’s been crazy with this Fentanyl,” said an administrator at a single men’s shelter who was not authorized to speak to the media.
A social service staff member at a women’s shelter said the naloxone training and accessibility seems to be working. “We are all trained regularly and carry Narcan [and] have Narcan kits in various places around the facility in the case of suspected overdose,” the person said.
But staff, residents and city officials interviewed for this story said the key is addressing the root causes of substance use and making it easier for people to access and stick with treatment.
“The stress people feel while being in shelter has caused many to relapse,” said Milton Perez, an activist with VOCAL-NY and former shelter resident who moved into an apartment last year.
He said the best treatment is permanent housing mixed with behavioral and medical support to prevent people who are isolated from fatally overdosing.
Perez also urged shelter staff to inform residents when a person overdoses or dies to protect others.
“People die one day from drugs, nothing is said,” he said. “And the next day someone dies probably from the same package of bad drugs.”
