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Obama to Send His New War Powers Request to Capitol Hill

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President Barack Obama answers a question during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2015. The leaders were expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and arming Ukrainian fighters to wage a more effective battle against Russian-backed separatists. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama answers a question during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2015. The leaders were expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and arming Ukrainian fighters to wage a more effective battle against Russian-backed separatists. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House was ready to share with lawmakers Tuesday its plan to seek authority for the use of military force against the Islamic State group, setting up the first war vote in Congress in 13 years.

Presidential counsel Neil Eggleston arranged to meet with Senate Democrats as President Barack Obama is preparing to formally unveil his proposed authorization, a Democratic official revealed.

The White House has not finalized the text of its proposal or made a final decision on when to summit it, as presidential aides continue to schedule private consultations with lawmakers to negotiate details, according to a person familiar with the outreach.

The Democratic official said the release could come as early as Wednesday. Both officials spoke on a condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss negotiations on the record.

The White House and proponents of a new authorization for use of military force argue that passage is important to show unity in the fight against militants who have seized territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria, imposed a violent form of Sharia law and killed U.S. and allied hostages. On Wednesday, Obama confirmed the death of 26-year-old aid worker Kayla Jean Mueller after more than a year in Islamic State captivity.

“No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death,” Obama said in a statement. “ISIL is a hateful and abhorrent terrorist group whose actions stand in stark contrast to the spirit of people like Kayla.”

To get congressional approval for new authorization, Obama must find a balance between lawmakers who want wide authority to fight the Islamic State group and others, including members of his own party, who worry that it will lead to another American entanglement in a protracted war.

No. 2 House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said some lawmakers want to set geographic limits or restrict the types of forces that can be used. “Members don’t want open-ended” authority for the president to use force, he said. “They want some time limit so we can reconsider at some point in time, whether its 24 months, 36 months, 48 months.”

Hoyer said he believes the full House can consider an authorization in March. “I think we ought to do that as quickly as we can, knowing full well that this is a serious matter,” he said.

So far, no formal language has been submitted, although the White House has completed a draft, according to a senior congressional official who spoke only on grounds of anonymity because this person wasn’t authorized to discuss by name a strategy being discussed privately.

Obama committed to congressional leaders in a bipartisan meeting last month that he would work with them to come up with language that can win bipartisan support. The White House then dispatched top aides, including Eggleston, legislative affairs director Katie Fallon, counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco and foreign policy advisers Susan Rice, Avril Haines and Ben Rhodes, to reach out to Capitol Hill on the draft language. A person familiar with the discussions said Tuesday that they were continuing.

In 2002, Congress passed a resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to use force against Iraq — a vote that scores of Democrats have regretted and 2008 presidential candidate Obama used as a cudgel against his rivals to win the Democratic nomination.

Obama so far has relied on congressional authorizations that Bush used to justify military action after 9/11. Critics say the White House’s use of these authorizations to fight the terrorist group is a legal stretch at best. The president earlier insisted he had the legal authority to deploy more than 2,700 U.S. troops in Iraq to train and assist Iraqi security forces, and conduct ongoing airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria. More recently, the president has said he wants a new authorization, but has not released details.

Another congressional official said the president will ask for a three-year authorization so the next president will have to seek renewed authority to fight IS. The official said Obama wants to leave open the option to send in combat forces if needed, but is not seeking an authorization that would permit a prolonged U.S. troop presence on the ground. The White House request also would not restrict the fight to certain geographic locations, but would limit the U.S. to fighting IS militants or any future group that evolves, the official said.

A congressional aide said Democrats will not rubber-stamp the White House version, but will seek to rewrite it to include bipartisan views. Another congressional staffer said the debate in Congress will not necessarily flow along party lines because, for instance, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats alike have disagreed about two major sticking points: deploying U.S. combat troops and restricting the geographical area served by the new authorization. The second staffer said a final authorization will depend on the language decided on regarding these two issues.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the new authorization should be flexible enough so it can be used not only against IS, but also against whatever form the group takes in the future, as well as any groups that associate with or support it materially.

Other lawmakers want the new war powers to be narrowly defined in a way that gives the president the authority to train and equip local forces and conduct airstrikes, but not launch a combat mission on the ground.

___

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Oakland Post: Week of March 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 5 – 11, 2025

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Undocumented Workers Are Struggling to Feed Themselves. Slashed Budgets and New Immigration Policies Bring Fresh Challenges

Founded more than 20 years ago, Street Level Health Project started with a handful of nurses and volunteers visiting day laborer sites in East Oakland to provide medical assistance and other resources to newly arrived immigrants. They quickly spotted symptoms common among day laborers: nausea, fatigue, and headaches. Sitting in the sun for hours waiting for work is typical. Once on a job, some men shared incidents of nearly passing out while working. Volunteer nurses also noticed signs of hunger among the men, with some going days without eating a proper meal.

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Day laborer zone sites are scattered across several streets in East Oakland, California. The sites allow workers to find temporary jobs in skilled labor such as construction, landscaping, and agriculture. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.
Day laborer zone sites are scattered across several streets in East Oakland, California. The sites allow workers to find temporary jobs in skilled labor such as construction, landscaping, and agriculture. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

By Magaly Muñoz

Up and down the streets of the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland, immigrant workers head to empty parking lots and street corners waiting for a job. Some are as young as 14 and as old as 60.

Diego, a man in his late thirties, is a construction worker who arrived in the United States nine months ago. He, like many of the men standing beside him at the day laborer site, came to the U.S. in the hopes of providing a new life for his family. Now, Diego and other immigrants are worried as threats of deportation increase from the Trump administration.

Also worried are organizations such as Street Level Health Project, an Oakland-based nonprofit dedicated to providing access to health care and basic services to these laborers.

Street Level Health Project’s funding primarily comes from federal and local grants, These are in jeopardy because of city budget constraints and proposed cuts to federal social service dollars.

Already, the nonprofit’s local funding has been cut. The City of Oakland decreased one of the organization’s grants by $35,000 in one of its latest rounds of budget cuts, with city officials citing a looming budget deficit.

“Our primary day laborer program funding right now is secured, but we do have concerns in this next budget cycle if it will continue to be secured, given [the budget shortfall], and the recent cut to 13 community grants across the city,” said Executive Director Gabriela Galicia.

Founded more than 20 years ago, Street Level Health Project started with a handful of nurses and volunteers visiting day laborer sites in East Oakland to provide medical assistance and other resources to newly arrived immigrants. They quickly spotted symptoms common among day laborers: nausea, fatigue, and headaches. Sitting in the sun for hours waiting for work is typical. Once on a job, some men shared incidents of nearly passing out while working. Volunteer nurses also noticed signs of hunger among the men, with some going days without eating a proper meal.

“We’re the safety net to the safety net,” said Galicia. As Oakland’s sole organization devoted to helping undocumented workers, Street Level is often tasked with “picking up the leftovers” for groups that provide resources to the larger immigrant or underserved communities, she added. Now, that mission is under threat.

Level Health Project is a nonprofit organization in East Oakland that provides health and employment resources for immigrant day laborers and their families. The staff upped their efforts to provide information about immigration rights in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Level Health Project is a nonprofit organization in East Oakland that provides health and employment resources for immigrant day laborers and their families. The staff upped their efforts to provide information about immigration rights in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

At day laborer sites in East Oakland, several workers said that they often skip buying groceries or meals for themselves in order to save money for rent or other necessities.

Diego, who like others interviewed for this story asked to not share his full name because of his undocumented status, said he’s lucky if he makes $300 a week. He said that is enough to pay for the small room he and his son rent in the Fruitvale – but not enough to feed them both. Diego said that he will sometimes go days without food.

The family Diego rents from is more fortunate, he said, because they’re able to afford meat and rice. At times, Diego said, it’s hard to ignore the savory smell that finds its way to his bedroom. Diego tells his son to look away from his landlord’s table to avoid feeling envious about what they cannot buy themselves.

“It’s hard because I know there’s food at the store, but there’s never enough [money] to buy it,” Diego said. “We barely have enough to pay our rent every month.”

On top of paying for the basics here in the U.S., day laborers also face pressure to support relatives in their home countries.

Pedro, interviewed on his BART ride home after an unsuccessful day of trying to find work in East Oakland, said his family in Guatemala regularly goes days without eating because he can’t make enough money in the Bay Area to send home to them.

“A lot of [day laborers] have their families back in [Latin America], making it harder to keep up with our needs here,” Pedro said. Some days he said the only thing he eats is the fruit that some local organizations hand out to workers like him.

Street Level Health Project is providing weekly grocery bags to immigrant day laborers and their families to address the growing need for food in the community. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Street Level Health Project is providing weekly grocery bags to immigrant day laborers and their families to address the growing need for food in the community. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Bracing for bigger challenges

Before the pandemic, Street Level Health Project had a hot meal lunch program at their central office in the Fruitvale, where the organization provided meals twice a week for over 50 people. The organization also had a hot meal breakfast program where they prepared 50 to 90 meals, three times a week.

Understanding the food insecurity that many day laborers face, the project launched a food distribution program in 2011, distributing nearly 70 bags of groceries weekly. Thanks to additional funding, they were able to increase that to 150 food bags a week during the pandemic.

In recent years, Street Level Health Project reduced its weekly grocery distribution back to 70 bags and cut its hot meal program completely. Galicia, the director, said that’s because of the end of COVID-19 funding and staffing reductions.

Street Level Health Project also receives regular donations from the Alameda County Food Bank, but Galicia said it has not been enough to restore the food distribution program to what it was during the pandemic.

Currently, Street Level has a $100,000 grant from the city of Oakland to provide wrap-around services for day laborers, such as getting jobs for the workers, providing assistance with CalFresh and MediCal applications, and referring people to legal aid or immigration assistance. Galicia said that funding is barely enough to do the amount of work that the city expects.

Meanwhile, the $35,000 cut in funding has impacted the organization’s workers’ rights outreach and education services, she said.

The Oakland Post tried reaching out to city and county officials several times for comment but did not get a response.

Galicia fears city leaders will make even harsher cuts during the upcoming budget cycle this spring to balance a $130 million shortfall. Last year, Oakland cut funding for public safety, arts and culture programs, and 13 other nonprofits that serve the city’s most vulnerable populations.

Yet the budget concerns don’t stop with local government.

In the wake of Trump 2.0, organizations across the country are handing out “red cards” with the rights that immigrants should be aware of when encountering immigration officers. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

In the wake of Trump 2.0, organizations across the country are handing out “red cards” with the rights that immigrants should be aware of when encountering immigration officers. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

Since President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, immigrant communities and the organizations that serve them have been in crisis mode.

Trump, who ran on a promise to deport millions of immigrants, has signed executive orders to stop birthright citizenship, shipped migrants to Guantanamo Bay, and attempted to freeze federal funding to social programs. Undocumented residents are increasingly anxious that their families might get separated.

Galicia said this is the time for local and state governments to invest in their organizations’ staff and direct resources, not take them away, from the people on the frontlines.

“I think that it’s just as important that funders are able to give to our teams, not just for the community but because the people doing the work have to be well, and we need ample resources to be able to do this work to support our community,” Galicia said.

For Pedro, the day laborer in Oakland, the combination of less support from nonprofits like Street Level Health Project, along with fear raised by the Trump administration’s deportation threats, has left him fearful. He is not alone, he said. He has noticed fewer day laborers showing up to their usual spots. Pedro said he himself fears encountering an immigration officer on his way to work.

“We don’t want to leave our homes, but at the same time, if we don’t go outside, we don’t work,” he said. “If we don’t work, we can’t afford to live.”

Oakland Post reporter Magaly Muñoz produced this story as part of a series as a 2024 USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Data Fellow and Engagement Grantee.

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Oakland Post: Week of February 26 – March 4, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of February 26 – March 4, 2025

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