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Daily Caller

Democrat Governors, City Leaders Pledge To Shield Illegal Immigrants From Trump’s Agenda

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

Democratic governors and other liberal elected officials have lined up to declare that they will fight back against President-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.

Trump, who won the election on Tuesday in an electoral landslide, has promised to conduct mass deportations across the country and withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, along with a slate of other hawkish enforcement proposals. However, Democratic governors in Massachusetts, California and Illinois — all of whom have been speculated as potential 2028 presidential contenders — and other elected leaders have said they will use their authority to push back against the upcoming administration’s agenda.

“I think that the key here is that every tool in the toolbox has gotta be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said to MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell after Trump’s victory. Healey confirmed that Massachusetts State Police would “absolutely not” be helping the Trump administration deportation plans.

The entire state of Massachusetts is already described as a “sanctuary” haven by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks sanctuary laws and policies across. Healey’s reluctance to help the incoming administration’s enforcement efforts follows her state’s struggles with the ongoing immigration crisis, having publicly asked illegal immigrants to not go to her state and offered plane tickets for them to leave.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday called for a special session of the state legislature in order to “protect California values” from the incoming Trump administration.

“The special session will focus on bolstering California legal resources to protect civil rights, reproductive freedom, climate action, and immigrant families,” a statement from the governor’s office reads. “On immigrant protection, California has advanced policies that support immigrant families and is investing in their protection.

Like Massachusetts, the entire state of California is also deemed a “sanctuary” jurisdiction for statewide policies that forbid cooperation between local law enforcement officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Newsom’s office told The Associated Press that the upcoming special session for lawmakers will help “Trump-proof” the state’s laws.

In addition to conducting the “largest deportation program in American history,” Trump has also said he would end birthright citizenship for those born on American soil by illegal migrant parents, bring back the Remain in Mexico program, hire more Border Patrol agents and establish a compensation fund for victims of migrant crime.

The president-elect announced late Sunday he was picking former ICE acting director Tom Homan to be the border czar in the new administration, making clear the upcoming administration will be adopting a tough stance on enforcement.

“To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom and opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said during a press conference after Trump’s victory. “You come for my people, you come through me.”

Pritzker said that Illinois will remain a sanctuary state and vowed to take the Trump administration to court if it attempts to withhold federal funds over the issue. The president-elect has pledged to force sanctuary cities to cooperate with immigration authorities by stripping them of federal public safety grants.

Numerous local Democratic elected officials have also signaled that they will do what they can to stymie the president-elect’s immigration agenda, with several members of the Los Angeles City Council saying that they will fast-track the passage of a sanctuary city ordinance, according to the LA Times. The legislation, which is still under review by city attorneys, would prohibit federal immigration enforcement officials from accessing Los Angeles’ databases.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment when asked by the Daily Caller News Foundation if she would support the bill.

Many liberal organizations have also declared they are ready and waiting to fight the Trump administration tooth and nail, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has filed over 400 legal actions against Trump and his previous administration since 2016, with a large portion of them targeting immigration directives from Trump’s first term.

“Starting on day one, we’re ready to fight for our civil liberties and civil rights in the courts, in Congress, and in our communities,” the organization stated after Trump’s election victory. “We did it during his first term — filing 434 legal actions against Trump while he was in office — and we’ll do it again.”

Business

Biden-Harris Admin Reportedly Backs Off On Major Emissions Initiative At UN Climate Summit

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Nick Pope

The Biden-Harris administration is quietly backing away from a plan to use the ongoing U.N. climate conference to announce an international call for emissions reductions, according to Politico.

It is not clear whether it is because President-elect Donald Trump decisively won last week’s presidential election, but Biden-Harris officials reportedly intended to partner with several other countries in announcing “ambitious” carbon emissions reduction goals for 2035 before the announcement fell through, according to Politico, which cited a draft press release it obtained and several unnamed officials. Had it not fallen through, the announcement could have gone live as early as Monday, the first day of the conference — commonly referred to as COP29 — in Azerbaijan, a Caucasian petrostate with a questionable human rights record.

The aborted call to action would not have been legally binding, though it would have served as a signal to corporations to invest in emissions reduction initiatives and pave the way for other nations to get on board, according to Politico. The countries that would have been named in the announcement would have committed to slashing emissions across nearly every sector of their respective economies, and they would have taken aim at specific chemicals like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The press release announcing the commitments “clearly won’t be published” at this point, one senior foreign diplomat told Politico, which granted the source anonymity to speak freely on the matter. Beyond Trump’s victory, other potential factors that may have interfered with the plan to roll out the 2035 targets include ambivalence from potential partners or bureaucratic logjam in the European Union, an American ally that typically collaborates on similar climate targets.

The U.S. circulated the idea of putting out a statement ahead of COP29 with “a lot of parties but never pushed for it to become something more,” a European official involved in climate negotiations told Politico.

Trump’s pending return to the White House is looming large at COP29, given the president-elect’s pledges to roll back green spending, regulations and initiatives and jack up fossil fuel production, according to CBS News. Moreover, Trump has also promised to withdraw again from the U.N.’s Paris Climate Accords, which he did in his first term before the Biden-Harris administration rejoined the deal.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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Business

Energy Giant Wins Appeal In Landmark Lawsuit Blaming Company For Climate Change

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Owen Klinsky

Energy giant Shell won its appeal against a landmark 2021 legal ruling claiming the company was partially responsible for climate change and needed to cut carbon emissions.

The original decision handed down in 2021 ordered Shell to reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030, with anti-fracking group Friends of the Earth Netherlands bringing the claims. Now, a Dutch appellate court has thrown out the ruling, stating that climate science is not developed enough to impose specific emissions reduction requirements on private businesses like Shell.

“The court of appeal… takes as its point of departure that there is a broad consensus that, in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, reduction pathways must be chosen in which CO2 emissions are reduced by a net 45% by the end of 2030 relative to at least 2019,” the Hague Court of Appeal wrote in its ruling. “The court cannot determine what specific reduction obligation applies to Shell.”

The Shell logo is displayed outside a petrol station in Plymouth on August 15, 2024 in Somerset, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The court also noted Shell has already made efforts to lower emissions.

“To assume the impending violation of a legal obligation alleged by Milieudefensie [Friends of the Earth Netherlands] et al., the court would have to find that it is likely that Shell will not have reduced its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 45% by 2030, despite Shell’s concrete plans and the measures Shell has already taken to implement those plans,” the ruling stated. “Milieudefensie et al. have not provided sufficient arguments in support of that.”

The Hague’s decision comes as world leaders meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nations’ COP29 climate summit this month, with the U.S. finalizing a levy on “excess” methane emissions from oil and gas producers Tuesday. A variety of world leaders, including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opted not to attend this year, while representatives from Afghanistan’s Taliban are slated to attend the climate confab for the first time ever.

Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Shell and the Hague Court of Appeals did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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