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GOP Leaders Press State Department to Designate China’s Treatment of Uighurs as Genocide

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GOP Leaders Press State Department to Designate China’s Treatment of Uighurs as Genocide

Free Beacon

Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee are pressing the State Department to formally designate China’s suppression of its Uighur minority population as a genocide, according to a copy of the congressional communication obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Reps. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) and Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) say that mounting evidence indicates the Chinese government is committing genocide by forcing the country’s Uighur Muslim minority into concentration camps and using them as slave labor. The State Department is currently examining whether to classify China’s actions as genocide.

“The CCP has engaged in a systematic and widespread campaign of violence, torture, detention, forced sterilization, and enslavement of the Uighur Muslim people in [China’s Xinjiang province],” the lawmakers wrote, according to a copy of the letter sent Wednesday to the State Department. “Its actions reflect an intent to destroy, whether in whole or in part, this population.”

With its final days in office, the Trump administration could escalate tensions with Beijing by labeling its treatment of the Uighurs as genocide, a label that is rarely applied to global human rights situations and could compel U.S. intervention. Activist groups and lawmakers from both parties have pressed the outgoing administration to move forward with the designation for months, citing evidence that China is forcing the vulnerable population into work camps and worse, including reports of torture and forced abortions. Incoming president Joe Biden described the genocidal situation while on the campaign trail and could instruct his State Department to pick up the deliberations if President Donald Trump’s team fails to act.

“Our next move must be to condemn the CCP’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang as genocide, because that’s the word that accurately describes what has been going on there,” Banks, the Republican Study Committee chairman, told the Free Beacon. “If the world turns a blind eye to what’s going on in Xinjiang, it will embolden the CCP to do it again somewhere else.”

The issue has received bipartisan attention, with a group of senators from both parties introducing legislation late last year designating China’s treatment of Uighurs as genocide. Banks and Wilson are just the latest lawmakers to raise the issue and press for greater action. The United States has only applied the genocide label twice in its history, most recently in 2016 when the Obama administration classified ISIS as committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims in the Middle East. The designation in China’s case would likely spark a wholesale rethinking about the U.S. economic relationship with the country.

Public reporting indicates that as many as one million Uighurs are imprisoned in labor camps and forced to work in Chinese factories, claims that have been elevated by senior members of the Trump administration, including National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, who accused China in 2019 of operating “concentration camps.”

Banks and Wilson maintain there is more than enough evidence for the State Department to move forward with a genocide classification, arguing China “has deliberately killed, tortured, detained, and inflicted harm against the Uighur people and created conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the Uighurs in whole or in part.”

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Concerns Grow Over Non-Citizen Voting in Arizona

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Concerns Grow Over Non-Citizen Voting in Arizona

In Arizona, to vote in federal elections (President, the House, and the Senate) you are required to swear (under penalty of perjury) that you are a U.S. citizen…

But there is no proof requirement.

Official Arizona Secretary of State Citizenship Requirements for Voting:

Source: https://azsos.gov/elections/voters/registering-vote/registration-requirements/proof-citizenship-requirements

The federal government relies on the attestation of the individual, the penalties for false statements, and the states’ efforts to cross-check information to maintain the integrity of the voter registration process (Source).

The process is largely based on the honor system.

The Associated Press recently reported this fact:

Source: https://apnews.com/article/arizona-voting-laws-citizenship-proof-50dafd68f8dd4af5cf669afa62efdf19

Currently, there is no national database or system that verifies the citizenship of voters directly. There is no guaranteed audit at the federal level specifically targeting “federal only” voters who have not provided proof of citizenship.

What about election audits? Wouldn’t non-citizen voters get caught?

Non-citizens in the country on parole awaiting an asylum hearing could potentially be identifiable in databases used for post-election audits, such as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which is designed to verify the immigration status of individuals (Source).

As for “gotaway” illegal immigrants who evaded entering in a documented fashion, it would be significantly more challenging to identify them in databases for the purposes of a post-election audit.

Since they have not been processed through official immigration channels, they would not have records in the same databases that document legal entries and immigration statuses. Therefore, they would not be easily identifiable through the standard verification processes used in post-election audits.

I’ve seen studies that claim non-citizen and Illegal Immigrant voting is extremely rare… What about those?

Studies such as those from the Brennan Center for Justice (link), indicate that non-citizen voting is extremely rare based on available data and the significant legal risks involved.

However, these studies rely on the analysis of documented cases and official records, which would not include undocumented individuals who evaded detection entirely.

For “gotaway” illegal immigrants, since they lack official records, there would be no straightforward method to audit their voting activity after an election. This is a limitation of the current verification systems, which are designed to prevent ineligible voting using the records available. The rarity of non-citizen voting cited in studies is based on the assumption that the risk of severe penalties, including deportation and imprisonment, serves as a strong deterrent against such actions.

In summary, while there are robust systems in place to deter and detect ineligible voting, the nature of undocumented entry into the country creates a gap in the ability to audit post-election voting activity for those individuals. The extent to which this occurs is unknown, and the studies available do not account for individuals without any official records.

All things considered, voting is only a small fraction of the overall concerns that Americans are expressing related to illegal immigration and asylum into the United States.

Gallup recently reported:

Quote from Gallup:

“For the third month in a row, immigration is the problem Americans name more than any other as the most important facing the U.S. While immigration has not ranked as the top problem often in Gallup’s monthly trend, it stands alone as the most politically polarizing issue in the past 25 years of Gallup’s measurement.

The record surge of migrants at the southern U.S. border in December brought even more focus on the issue — and while attempted crossings have eased slightly since then, they are expected to increase as spring continues. President Joe Biden’s approval rating for his handling of immigration has been persistently poor. With the presidential election about six months away and immigration top of mind, the issue remains a significant vulnerability for Biden as he seeks reelection.”

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/644570/immigration-named-top-problem-third-straight-month.aspx

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Illegal Immigration Massively Surges in 2024

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Illegal Immigration Massively Surges in 2024

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Health

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, Has Been Diagnosed with Terminal Cancer

This follows his transfer to a medical facility in December

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The new comes from a letter he wrote:

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