Archives for February 2021

Amazon sues NY attorney general to stop virus probe

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is suing the attorney general of New York in a bid to stop her from suing the company over its coronavirus safety protocols and the firing of one of its outspoken workers.

In the lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, Amazon said Attorney General Letitia James overstepped her authority by trying to regulate coronavirus safety protocols at its warehouse in New York’s Staten Island borough.

The company said James threatened to sue if Amazon didn’t agree to her list of demands, including rehiring the worker, Christian Smalls, and paying him and another fired worker large sums of money.

James said Friday that she will continue to review her legal options. In a statement, she called Amazon’s lawsuit “a sad attempt to distract from the facts and shirk accountability for its failures to protect hardworking employees from a deadly virus.”

Amazon defended its COVID-19 safety protocols in the lawsuit, saying it hired experts, added hand-sanitizer stations and signs alerting workers to stay at least 6-feet apart from each other. It also said that unannounced inspections in March and April by the New York City sheriff’s office found the warehouse went above and beyond safety requirements.

Amazon fired Smalls in March after he led a walkout at the Staten Island warehouse to push the company to better protect its workers from the virus. Smalls said he was fired in retaliation and to stop other workers from speaking out. Amazon said it terminated Smalls because he violated social-distancing guidelines.

The company argued in court documents that only the federal government can mandate COVID-19 safety protocols and that the attorney general’s office doesn’t have the legal authority “it purports to wield against Amazon.”

Seattle-based Amazon is asking the court to stop James from pursuing any action against the company, and to declare that she doesn’t have authority on COVID-19 safety measures or to regulate claims that a worker was retaliated against.

Biden to slowly allow 25,000 people seeking asylum into US

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday announced plans for tens of thousands of people who are seeking asylum and have been forced to wait in Mexico under a Trump-era policy to be allowed into the U.S. while their cases wind through immigration courts.

The first wave of an estimated 25,000 asylum-seekers with active cases in the “Remain in Mexico” program will be allowed into the United States on Feb. 19, authorities said. They plan to start slowly, with two border crossings each processing up to 300 people a day and a third crossing taking fewer numbers.

President Joe Biden’s administration declined to publicly identify the three crossings out of fear it may encourage a rush of people, but U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, said officials told him that they are Brownsville and El Paso in Texas, and San Diego’s San Ysidro crossing.

The move is a major step toward dismantling one of former President Donald Trump’s most consequential policies to deter asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S. About 70,000 asylum-seekers were enrolled in the program officially called Migrant Protection Protocols since it was introduced in January 2019.

On Biden’s first day in office, the Homeland Security Department suspended the policy for new arrivals. Since then, some asylum-seekers picked up at the border have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court.

Biden is quickly making good on a campaign promise to end the policy, which the Trump administration said was critical to reversing a surge of asylum-seekers that peaked in 2019. But the policy also exposed people to violence in Mexican border cities and made it extremely difficult for them to find lawyers and communicate with courts about their cases.

“As President Biden has made clear, the U.S. government is committed to rebuilding a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “This latest action is another step in our commitment to reform immigration policies that do not align with our nation’s values.”

Asylum-seekers will be released with notices to appear in court in cities close to or in their final destinations, typically with family, administration officials said.

Homeland Security said the move “should not be interpreted as an opening for people to migrate irregularly to the United States.” Administration officials say the vast majority of people who cross the border illegally are quickly expelled under a public health order that Trump put in place in March amid the coronavirus pandemic. But some asylum-seeking families have been released in Texas and California, working against that messaging.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that she was concerned limited releases in the U.S. may encourage others to cross illegally.

“We don’t want people to put themselves in danger at a time where it is not the right time to come, because we have not had time to put in place a humane and moral system and process,” she said.

Court hearings for people enrolled in “Remain in Mexico” have been suspended since June because of the pandemic. Getting word to them about when to report to the border for release in the United States may prove a daunting job.

Homeland Security said it would soon announce a “virtual registration process” online and by phone for people to learn where and when they should report. It urged asylum-seekers not to report to the border unless instructed.

The International Organization for Migration will help with logistics and test asylum-seekers for COVID-19 before they enter the U.S., spokeswoman Liz Lizama said. The U.N. migration agency’s Mexico director, Dana Graber Ladek, said last month that it would seek to inform and support asylum-seekers on any changes in the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Roberta Jacobson, coordinator for the southwest border on the White House National Security Council, said asylum-seekers who have been waiting the longest will get priority, along with people deemed more vulnerable due to their health or threats to their safety.

The announcement provides no relief to people whose cases were dismissed or denied, and Jacobson told Spanish-language media that the administration was still considering how to address any cases beyond those that are active. Advocates argue that communication problems, including lack of working addresses in Mexico, caused some people to miss hearings and lose their cases as a result.

Mexico agreed to take back more asylum-seekers in June 2019 to defuse Trump’s threats of tariff increases. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador welcomed Biden’s changes, saying at a news conference Friday that it would be “good” for the U.S. to host them instead while their cases wind through the system.

The Remain in Mexico releases will come as more people are getting stopped crossing the border illegally since Biden took office, challenging the administration in its early days.

Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said Tuesday that more than 3,000 people had been stopped in each of the previous 10 days, compared with a daily average of 2,426 in January.

About 50 to 80 adults and children have been arriving daily since Jan. 27 at Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, which temporarily houses people released by the Border Patrol, said Sister Norma Pimentel, the group’s executive director. The charity tests for COVID-19 and sends anyone who tests positive to a hotel for isolation.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego housed 191 asylum-seekers the first 10 days of February after they were released, up from 144 in January and 54 in December, said Eitan Peled, the group’s border services advocate. They are quarantined in hotels for 10 days.

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Associated Press writer Maria Verza in Mexico City and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

The most sought-after benefit for feds during a pandemic

For some of us, the pandemic has felt like a version of Groundhog Day. Wake up, work, sleep, repeat.

Maybe learn a new hobby somewhere in between. Phil Connors learned to play the piano.

For others, life couldn’t be more different. Like say, Jack Bauer, it’s a race against the clock to get everything done, including work, child care and Zoom school supervision, within a 24-hour day.

Last fall, we spoke with the Professional Managers Association, which represents supervisors at the IRS. PMA and other organizations representing managers and executives said the pandemic had created two groups of working feds, those with no children or extra care responsibilities and a stack of unused vacation days, and those with child or elder care responsibilities who are juggling their work and home lives.

In this scenario, are you a Phil Connors or a Jack Bauer?

Of course, it’s not always that simple.

But time has become the most sought-after benefit for federal employees over the last year. And by my count, Congress has launched a handful of efforts during the pandemic to add, preserve or clarify paid leave for feds.

Some have been more serious than others.

Paid parental leave was a product of pre-pandemic times, but it kicked in for most feds last October. Congress also passed a long-sought-after fix for the program in January, expanding it to the entire federal workforce after the original law accidentally left out a few groups of employees.

The focus over the summer was on preserving use-or-lose vacation time. The Office of Personnel Management changed a complex regulation allowing essential feds to hang on to use-or-lose leave. The theory, according to OPM, is that some feds were so busy last year — maybe doctors, nurses, scientists, etc. — that work prevented them from taking those use-or-lose vacation days.

Congress eventually allowed more feds to carry over more annual leave than usual into this year, but the process is complicated, to say the least.

And earlier this year, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and others revived an effort to give federal employees paid medical and family leave. The legislation isn’t necessarily a direct response to the pandemic, but it would help, the members said.

A group of House Democrats wrote to OPM at the beginning of the month, asking the agency to give federal employees the option of taking leave to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Last week, Congress launched a new effort.

Most feds might remember the budget reconciliation process from recent years, when Congress threatened to tap into the federal retirement program to uncover billions of dollars in spending offsets.

Now, House Democrats want to use budget reconciliation to do the opposite. They’re looking to give federal employees up to 15 weeks of paid leave for a variety of pandemic reasons. The price tag is $570 million.

Feds would have to exhaust their paid sick leave first, but the proposal would allow them to tap into this new bank to quarantine, recover from COVID-19, care for a sick family member, care for an older family member who’s isolating during the pandemic and supervise children who are learning virtually from home or whose day care is closed.

Employees could use this leave through Sept. 30.

One reader emailed me to say she hoped Congress approved the leave proposal, in part, because many of her colleagues were struggling to balance work and their children’s Zoom school.

In our own surveys of Federal News Network surveys during the pandemic, some feds and contractors have said they’re trying to stay above water for the same reason.

So what’s next?

The House Oversight and Reform Committee took the first step Friday to advance the emergency federal employee leave fund. From there, it could appear in a broader budget reconciliation package, which House Democrats want as a way to advance President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan.

From there? It’s anyone’s guess.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Alazar Moges

The first fully animated feature film from Disney ever released was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, pioneering a new form of family entertainment.

Source: Walt Disney Animation Studios

Draghi forms new govt blending experts, political operatives

ROME (AP) — Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Friday accepted the Italian president’s bid to form a new government, announcing a Cabinet of experts mixed with experienced political hands, at once seeking to reassure financial markets and tame a potentially unruly coalition of former rivals.

The formation of a broad-based government of national unity was widely expected after most political parties across the spectrum signaled their support for Draghi. Italy is at a critical juncture as it battles the health and economic consequences of the pandemic, which first struck the country hard almost one year ago.

Draghi also submitted the names of his Cabinet members to President Sergio Mattarella, who has the job of officially naming them. The new government will be sworn in Saturday, followed by votes of confidence in both houses of Parliament, expected early next week.

Draghi arrived at the presidential palace promptly at 7 p.m., finishing his business within 40 minutes. He emerged just long enough to read his list of Cabinet members to reporters, flashing a brief smile but taking no questions before putting his N95 mask back on and going his way.

Draghi said that he has chosen Daniele Franco, general director of the Bank of Italy where Draghi was once the boss, as economy and finance minister. He also confirmed Luigi Di Maio as foreign minister, Roberto Speranza as health minister, Lucia Lamorgese as interior minister, Lorenzo Guerrini as defense minister and Dario Franceschini as culture minister — all keeping their roles in the previous government.

The Draghi-led government includes fierce political rivals, who at least for the moment — and with the promise of 200 billion euros in EU recovery funds — are agreeing to put aside their differences.

They include the 5-Star Movement, the biggest force in parliament which has governed both with Matteo Salvini’s right-wing League and alongside the left-wing Democratic Party. Draghi also has the support of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia and former Premier Matteo Renzi’s Italy Alive Party.

Pointedly, none of the Cabinet posts went to party leaders.

The far-right Brothers of Italy party said it will remain in opposition, after Salvini and Berlusconi broke their right-wing alliance to back Draghi.

Draghi, who is credited with having saved the euro as ECB chief, will have the job of spending the huge pool of EU funds recovery funds to relaunch Italy’s economy, badly damaged by a seven-week near-total lockdown last spring and rolling restrictions starting in the fall.

Some of the pain has been eased by activating existing social amortization programs along with bans on firings and evictions, but some of those are set to expire and experts have long called for an overhaul of Italy’s short-term layoff program.

Draghi, 73, replaces Giuseppe Conte, who resigned after a small party yanked support over the handling of the pandemic. Draghi was tapped after Conte failed to cobble together enough support for a third coalition government.

Known for his reserved demeanor, Draghi has kept out of sight during the political consultations and meetings with prospective Cabinet members — leaving political commentators used to having the inside track guessing until the last minute.

For his 23-member Cabinet, Draghi also transformed the environment ministry into a more developmentally oriented post for ecological transition, tapping Roberto Cingolani, an expert in nanotechnology, to run it. Such a post was sought by the 5-Star Movement, and also responds to the EU requirement that at least 37% of the allocated recovery funds must include environmental goals.

Draghi also created a separate tourism portfolio, separating it from the culture ministry — a clear priority as tourism, worth a full 13% of Italy’s GDP, has been badly damaged by the pandemic. The job goes to Massimo Garavaglia, of the League.

A former head of Italy’s constitutional court, Marta Catabia, has been tapped to run the justice ministry while former Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao will be in charge of technological innovation and digital transition, another priority for the EU recovery funds.

The new government is comprised of fifteen men and eight women, among them nine faces from Conte’s 21-strong Cabinet.

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Barry reported from Milan.

Census: No redistricting data until end of September

The U.S. Census Bureau said Friday it won’t be delivering data used for redrawing congressional, state and local legislative districts until the end of September, causing headaches for state lawmakers and redistricting commissions facing deadlines to redraw districts this year.

Officials at the statistical agency blamed operational delays during the 2020 census caused by the pandemic.

“The biggest reason? COVID-19. It’s something beyond the Census Bureau’s control,” said Kathleen Styles, the Census Bureau’s chief of Decennial Communications and Stakeholder Relations, in a call with reporters.

Styles had previously said the redistricting data would be available no earlier than the end of July because of delays caused by the virus. Before the pandemic, the deadline for finishing the redistricting data had been March 31.

The redistricting data includes counts of population by race, Hispanic origin, voting age and housing occupancy status at geographic levels as small as neighborhoods, and they are used for drawing voting districts for Congress, state legislatures and local districts. Unlike in past decades when the data were released to states on a flow basis, the 2020 redistricting data will be made available to the states all at once, according to the Census Bureau.

The delayed release creates a chain reaction in the political world. Several states will not get the data until after their legal deadlines for drawing new districts, requiring them to either rewrite laws or ask courts to allow them a free pass due to the delay. Candidates may not know yet whether they will live in the district they want to run in by the filing deadline. In some cases, if fights over new maps drag into the New Year, primaries may have to be delayed.

In the end, though, experts said the elections will proceed as normal in November 2022. The biggest impact will be to compress the window during which lawyers can challenge bad maps in court.

“It makes it significantly more likely that courts will bump up against election deadlines,” said Michael Li of the Brennan Center for Justice.

Census Bureau officials are aware of the deadlines facing lawmakers and redistricting commissions nationwide, but “we have a strong schedule that reflects the time we need,” said James Whitehorne, chief of the Redistricting and Voting Rights Data office at the bureau.

“We are consistently aware of the urgency and needs of the states for this data,” Whitehorne said.

Eric Holder, a U.S. attorney general in the Obama administration, warned that the new deadline shouldn’t be “a pretext to hold 2022 elections on old maps” in an effort at political gain, or to draw maps without significant public input, using the compressed timetable as an excuse.

“I will oppose any such efforts,” said Holder, who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

In Pennsylvania, the state Senate’s ranking member, President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, said late-arriving data could mean postponement of next year’s primary election, currently set for May 17, 2022. The state House and Senate will hold a joint committee hearing Wednesday on the impact of the delay in the Census Bureau data.

The announcement from the statistical agency came as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation that would extend the deadline for turning in the redistricting data to Sept. 30.

The legislation introduced by Democratic U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Republican U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both of Alaska, also sets an April 30 deadline for turning in the apportionment figures used for divvying up congressional seats among the states. The Census Bureau had previously announced it was aiming to hand in those state population counts by that date.

The once-a-decade census is used to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. It also is used for redrawing state and local political districts and determining the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year.

The deadline for turning in the apportionment numbers used for congressional seats has been a moving, and litigated, target since the coronavirus pandemic upended the Census Bureau’s head count of every U.S. resident. The numbers were supposed to be turned in at the end of last year, but the Census Bureau requested until the end of April after the virus outbreak caused the bureau to suspend operations.

Bureau officials say they need the extra time to fix not-unexpected irregularities found in the data.

The lawmakers introduced similar legislation last year but it never went anywhere in the Republican-controlled Senate after identical legislation passed the Democratic-controlled House. By then, the Trump administration had switched back to a Dec. 31 deadline for finishing the apportionment data after President Donald Trump issued a directive seeking to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the numbers used for divvying up congressional seats.

President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s order on his first day taking office last month. Control of the Senate also is now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to provide a deciding vote for the Democrats.

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AP writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa. contributed to this report.

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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Archives for February 2021

Nearly Useless Factoid

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