Civil Rights
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has condemned the Trump Administration for its plans to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala as part of a bilateral agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the Guatemalan Government.
Meanwhile, Castro and Congressman Filemon Vela of Brownsville have announced they will lead a congressional delegation to Brownsville and Matamoros to investigate the impacts of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico policy and the use of tent court facilities to adjudicate Remain in Mexico asylum cases.
On Jan. 1, Oregon's law turned 10 years old. For a decade, it has required state schools to interview at least one qualified minority candidate for all head coach and athletic director openings. The result has been historic gains in diversity hiring.
The decades-long quest of Chinook tribal members to regain federal recognition gets another airing in court on Monday. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear oral arguments on cross-claims for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the tribe against the Department of the Interior.
When two students hung a banner reading "Build A Wall" in the cafeteria at a school that's about half Hispanic or Latino, it predictably set off a firestorm.
The banner was hung for just a few minutes on May 18, 2016, at Forest Grove High School before it was taken down. The next morning, hundreds of Forest Grove High students walke out of class in protest, with many of them marching all the way from campus to the Forest Grove School District administration building on Main Street.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Columbia River In-Lieu and Treaty Fishing Access Sites Improvement Act, sending it to the president's desk to be signed into law.
Bonamici said she was grateful that the House passed the legislation to address historical injustices and honor the fishing treaty rights of four Columbia River Tribes.
A new rule in Oregon prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining people at state courthouses without a judicial arrest warrant.
The rule also protects people going to or from court proceedings from being stopped in nearby entryways, sidewalks and parking lots.
Some in Congress, including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, want to codify an ICE policy that limits arrests at "sensitive locations" like schools and hospitals into federal law. They also want to expand it to include courthouses.
Legislation sponsored by a Democrat that would require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers is finding some support across the aisle, but many Republicans are still reluctant to get behind the measure.