A CNN poll puts Senator Kamala Harris in second in the 2020 Democratic bid for president, closing a significant gap between her and the frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden. She is followed by senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
President Trump told reporters that the immigration raids that he delayed last week will take place after 4 July.
A Honduran man in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody since June died at a Texas hospital after he was found unresponsive in his room at a detention facility, according to the agency.
Yimi Alexis Balderramos-Torres, 30, is the sixth detainee to die in custody since October.
According to the agency, Balderramos-Torres made numerous attempts to enter the country. In May, he encountered Border Patrol in El Paso and was found to be “inadmissible to the US”, and returned to Mexico.
Ten days later, he entered the country, encountered local law enforcement during a “routine traffic stop,” and was transferred to Ice custody.
He had previously tried to enter the US in 2013, and was sent back to Honduras, according to Ice.
CNN poll ranks Kamala Harris no. 2 among 2020 Dems
It was no question that Senator Kamala Harris came out on top of the Democratic primary debates last week, when she challenged former Vice President Joe Biden on his relationship with segregationist Republicans and held him to answer on his record on bussing.
Her campaign has been open about the senator raising $2m in donations in the 24 hours following her formidable performance - $2m from 63,277 people - but the first polls are coming out now and showing that her performance translated into more than just dollar signs.
For the first time since Biden entered the race, a CNN poll has Harris just under Biden at second, with senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders at third and fourth, respectively:
Over the weekend, President Trump became the first sitting US president to enter North Korea when he shook hands with Kim Jong-un in an impromptu meeting in the demilitarized zone and then walked over the border.
Today, he tweets about it.
It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend. We had a great meeting, he looked really well and very healthy - I look forward to seeing him again soon....
....In the meantime, our teams will be meeting to work on some solutions to very long term and persistent problems. No rush, but I am sure we will ultimately get there!
Today, he appears to have more of a timeline in place:
President Trump in the Oval on ICE deportations, per print pooler @toddgillman: "After July 4 a lot of people are going to be brought back out. So people that come up maybe here for a short while, but they're going to be gone, they're going back to their countries."
— Francesca Chambers (@fran_chambers) July 1, 2019
If you’ll all be so kind as to rewind to just a few days ago, when the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from including a question about citizenship on the 2020 US census.
Well.
Trump says he’s looking at delaying the 2020 census “very strongly” because of his Supreme Court loss over the citizenship question
How likely is it that President Trump will be able to delay the 2020 census? It’s unclear at the moment exactly what he has planned. But let us remember that the US census is constitutionally mandated. So there’s that.
Trump tells pool in Oval Office there will be tanks at July 4 celebration, as we reported this morning. "And we're gonna have some tanks stationed outside... So we have to put them in certain areas but we have the brand new Sherman tanks and we have the brand new Abram tanks."
Before I hand the blog over to Vivian Ho on the west coast, how about we take a quick walk down a fake memory lane to think about some events at which Ivanka Trump would be unwanted.
As our Alison Rourke wrote, Ivanka Trump’s prominent role at the G20 summit over the weekend, and her presence at the Korean demilitarised zone with her father, has inspired a slew of parodies under the hashtag #unwantedivanka.
House Democrats are investigating whistleblower claims from within the State Department which allege that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has used his taxpayer-funded diplomatic security team for personal errands like picking up his dog and take away food orders.
From CNN:
Congressional investigators, who asked for the committee not to be named as they carry out their inquiries, tell CNN that a State Department whistleblower has raised multiple issues over a period of months, about special agents being asked to carry out some questionable tasks for the Pompeo family. In April, for example, an agent was asked to pick up Chinese food — without Pompeo in the car. The whistleblower said this led agents to complain that they are now serving as “UberEats with guns,” which has created a buzz within the department, according to multiple Democratic congressional aides who cited the whistleblower...
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a federal employee “shall not encourage, direct, coerce, or request a subordinate to use official time to perform activities other than those required in the performance of official duties or authorized in accordance with law or regulation.”
It is unclear if Pompeo requested the allegedly improper arrangements or whether they were made by someone on his staff without his knowledge...
Former government ethics czar Walter Shaub told CNN “sending subordinates to run personal errands for you is the very definition of misuse of position.”
CNN’s first poll of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents post-debate shows double-digit decline for Joe Biden, with Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren pulling up on his heels and ahead of Bernie Sanders.
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki ponders whether post-debate, Kamala Harris is starting to cobble together the same Dem coalition that propelled upstart Barack Obama to victory over establishment candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Per @DavidChalian just now, CNN's new poll has the black vote breaking like this post-debate:
Morning Consult's overnight poll immediately after the debate also showed Harris spiking with white liberals. White liberals + African Americans was a winning combination for Obama in '08. Harris may now have traction with both.
The Associated Press has this dispatch Monday from the Clint Texas Border Patrol station, where AOC will visit today on her tour of migrant detention facilities:
For almost two weeks, a 12-year-old migrant girl said she and her 6-year-old sister were held inside a Border Patrol station in Texas where they slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents.
She was one of hundreds of migrant children who have been held this year in holding cells at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station near El Paso that has come under fire for holding children in squalid and unsanitary conditions.
In a video obtained by The Associated Press, the girl speaking in Spanish tells her Minnesota-based attorney Alison Griffith children were “treated badly” and were not allowed to play or bathe. The girl’s face is not visible on the video to protect her privacy and not jeopardize her immigration case.
El Paso, Texas, attorney Taylor Levy, who worked with the girl’s family, said she and her sister were separated from their aunt when they arrived in the US on May 23. The children, from Central America, were put in the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, Levy said. Their aunt is still being detained.
Lawyers who visited the Clint facility last month after the girls had already been released said the conditions were perilous, with more than 250 children trying to take care of each other, passing toddlers between them, with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
Customs and Border Protection officials have repeatedly said the agency is “in a crisis mode” with too many immigrants and not enough resources. Customs gave journalists a tour of the Clint Border Station on June 26, and a congressional delegation headed there Monday.
The White House has just issued a new statement on escalating tensions with Iran declaring that “Maximum pressure on the Iranian regime will continue until its leaders alter their course of action.
The Iranian regime took action today to increase its uranium enrichment. It was a mistake under the Iran nuclear deal to allow Iran to enrich uranium at any level. There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms. We must restore the longstanding nonproliferation standard of no enrichment for Iran. The United States and its allies will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Maximum pressure on the Iranian regime will continue until its leaders alter their course of action. The regime must end its nuclear ambitions and its malign behavior.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that the country has breached the limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium set under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Border Patrol launching investigation into racist, sexist posts on Facebook group
According to ProPublica, Customs and Border Patrol has announced it is launching an investigation into a Facebook group of 10,000 former and active members where a number of racist and sexist posts were shared mocking migrants and violence against US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.” — US Border Patrol Chief
An update: Customs and Border Patrol has announced it is launching an investigation.
"Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable." — US Border Patrol Chief https://t.co/w2JTZOR5TT
