OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 4:25 PM PT – Sat. July 13, 2019
One California sheriff said she supports ICE, as they prepare for mass deportations. In an interview Friday, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims noted
that ICE is doing their job, and complying with law to remove illegal
immigrants who have evaded deportation. She reiterates that these immigrants received due process and went
through the court system, but chose to ignore the law and stay in the
country illegally.
Several California mayors and the state’s governor have reached-out
to illegal immigrants, informing them they don’t have to comply with ice
officers if they come knocking on their doors. Meanwhile, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement slams a Virginia Democrat, following a heated exchange on
Capitol Hill. In an interview Friday, Thomas Homan recapped his testimony before
Congress on detention centers at the border, calling out Congressman
Gerry Connolly. Homan said the congressman threw out dirt and wouldn’t let him
respond, calling it political theater, and calling Connolly a coward. Connolly and Homan shared some heated exchanges during the hearing,
one in which the Democrat lawmaker yelled at the former border agent. Homan said the Democrat’s actions are about resisting the president and support for open borders, and not about the truth.
Figures in government and media are trying to secularize American culture, which will lead the country away from its founding Judeo-Christian principles, according to Pastor John Hagee. When
the Pilgrims landed in today's New England, they made a promise to God
that what became the United States would be a righteous nation based on
morality, Hagee said in an interview airing Sunday on "Life, Liberty and Levin." The
relative lack of focus on Evangelicals by the media is, "indicative of
the fact that America is slipping from its moral foundations of faith
and Bible principles into secularism," the pastor said. "The further
into secularism you go, the further away from the Word of God you go." "And
when you're away from the Word of God, you are away from God," Hagee
went on. "So, they're out there swimming in an ocean of their own ego --
their opinions, their secular humanist concepts." Hagee, founder
and senior pastor at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, claimed
that what he sees as the shift from righteous leadership toward
secularism will destroy the vision of the Founding Fathers. "It
will produce nothing but heartache and chaos because the real principles
of society -- the real principles of this nation -- are still in the
Word of God," he said. "It's rarely taught, I guess, in our
government public schools these days: When our Pilgrims landed, they
made a covenant with God that this nation would be a nation that served
the Lord. "And our Founding Fathers, when they put the Constitution together, remembered the principles of the Word of God." Hagee claimed the United States has strayed from that form and must return to a righteous path in order to continue to prosper. "Our
nation today is getting away from anything that looks like
righteousness," he said. "... Our country is going the other direction
full-speed and it is paying an awesome price -- and that price has just
begun."
The intersection of 6th St. and San Pedro St. in Los Angeles is the center of Skid Row. (Andrew O'Reilly/Fox News)
City officials, developers and restaurateurs in Los Angeles
are touting the renaissance of the city’s once-blighted downtown thanks
to an explosion of trendy eateries, chic hotels and luxury apartments
that have attracted thousands of new – and generally financially
well-off – residents to the neighborhood in recent years.
But just
a few blocks south of the area where a set-course sushi meal costs
around $200 per person – wine or sake not included – is perhaps the country's most notorious tent city and a neighborhood that has been labeled the epicenter of homelessness in America: Skid Row.
The
area -- which has been plagued by vagrancy, high crime rates and
unsanitary conditions almost since its development in the 1880s -- is an
unorganized collection of warehouses, wholesale storefronts
and decaying low-rent hotels. Its trash-strewn streets are lined with
the blue tarps and fraying tents of those residents unable to afford a
solid roof over their heads.
But as development in Downtown Los
Angeles steams forward unimpeded, city officials and developers are
eyeing Skid Row as possibly the next “up-and-coming” neighborhood – a
move causing tensions with advocates and community outreach workers who
wonder what this means for the thousands of homeless and itinerant
people who currently call the rundown area home.
Advocates and community outreach workers worry what housing
development will mean for the thousands of homeless and itinerant people
who currently call the rundown neighborhood home. (Andrew O'Reilly/Fox
News)
“Most
of Skid Row is already being carved up,” Jerry Jones, the director of
public policy at the Inner City Law Center in Los Angeles, told Fox
News. “We need to help those who live on Skid Row right now.”
The
population of Downtown Los Angeles, which encompasses Skid Row and a
number of other smaller neighborhoods, has seen its population skyrocket
from just 18,000 people two decades ago to currently 76,000. There are
also development plans bouncing around city hall that could bring
176,000 new residents to downtown by 2040.
Activists were enraged
last June by a city proposal to rezone an industrial section of Skid Row
to residential and open it up for market-rate development – a plan that
supporters said would continue to the growth of downtown and create
much-needed mixed office and living spaces in a city dealing with a
major housing shortage.
While the proposal did call for putting
social service agencies and permanent supportive housing in other parts
of Skid Row, advocates for the neighborhood worried that it would drive
up rents and displace some 4,000 people who currently live in the area’s
single-room occupancy hotels and other modest lodgings.
In a
concession to activists, a new rezoning plan released earlier this month
calls for the conversion of parts of Skid Row into housing for
residents earning between $10,000 and $58,000 annually. The plan also
calls for any new development in bordering neighborhoods like the Arts
District and Little Tokyo to include units for low-income residents.
Craig Weber, principal planner for the city of Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that the new rezoning initiative is meant to create "housing opportunities for all."
“The
plan seeks to expand the opportunity for affordable housing through
policies, zoning and the community benefits program," he said.
Unlike
cities like New York and nearby Santa Monica, Los Angeles currently
does not have any laws on the books that require developers to mark off a
certain percentage of new units for affordable housing.
Skid Row
advocates like Jones say that the new rezoning plan is a start, but it
doesn’t address the area’s homeless crisis and will most likely still
displace the itinerant population of Skid Row into adjoining
neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and University Park.
“It’s a huge
opportunity that has been lost,” he said. “Any proposal to build in the
area should benefit the current residents of Skid Row first.”
Los
Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city lawmakers appear fully aware
that Skid Row has become the epicenter of a homeless crisis flaring
across major California cities – specifically prioritizing the
neighborhood in the mayor’s plan to tackle homelessness and allocating
$7 million from the $124 million the state recently approved for
improving the health and safety of city residents. This comes after the
city already spent $20 million last year to expand hygiene
infrastructure and street cleanups in the community.
Some 4,000 people currently live in Skid Row's single-room
occupancy hotels and other modest lodgings, with many more living in
tent encampments . (Andrew O'Reilly/Fox News)
“We
all know the epicenter of this crisis is Skid Row,” Garcetti said
during a press conference on Monday. “It’s where the extreme poverty
cuts the deepest, it’s where the racialized elements of this
homelessness crisis are most seen.”
He added: “The days of writing off this community are over.”
Besides
the hygiene initiative, the city also has plans to build a bin facility
for Skid Row residents to store their belongings, start a cleaning
initiative that would hire residents to clean the streets and construct
crisis beds for women in Skid Row at Downtown Women’s Center.
Activists
say that the city’s initiatives are a good start, but to really remedy
the dire situation that many on Skid Row find themselves in, a real roof
over their heads is the most important thing.
ICLC’s Jones
argues that different types of housing are needed to address the
complexities of the homeless crisis in Los Angeles – from permanent
supportive housing with on-site health professionals to deal with issues
like mental illness and drug addiction to transitional housing for
homeless youth and families trying to get back on their feet.
“Different people need different housing, but one thing they all need is a house,” he said.
The tent encampment on San Pedro St. in Skid Row borders a parking
lot that is slated to become a supportive housing complex with 298
residential units. (Andrew O'Reilly/Fox News)
Most housing development that has been constructed on
Skid Row over the last decade has been supportive housing, and a
nonprofit organization, the Weingart Center, recently proposed building a
19-story affordable housing tower in the neighborhood on what is
currently a parking lot.
The apartment complex would include 298
residential units – all studio apartments – as well as office space for
the Inner City Law Center and Chrysalis, a job training and placement
services nonprofit. The Weingart Center also has plans to build an
18-story and a 12-story supportive housing building on Skid Row that
would have 382 apartments for homeless individuals.
One
consequence of New York City's Saturday night blackout: It shined a
bright spotlight on the tensions between two prominent Democrats, the
city's mayor and the state's governor. As more than 70,000
customers -- plus countless tourists and other visitors -- dealt with
the loss of electricity attributed to a transformer fire, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was in Iowa campaigning for president when the massive blackout hit Manhattan. “I
can count the number of times I leave the state basically on my
fingers,” Cuomo told CNN, responding to a question about the importance
of the mayor being in New York during an emergency. "Mayors
are important. And situations like this come up, you know. And you have
to be on-site,” he said. "I think it’s important to be in a place where
you can always respond. But look, everybody makes their own political
judgment and I’m not going to second-guess anyone either. I do my job
the way I think I should do my job and I leave it to others to do the
same."
"Mayors are important. And situations like this come up, you know. And you have to be on-site." — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Although both are Democrats, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio,
left and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have had a strained relationship.
De Blasio was at a campaign stop in Waterloo, Iowa,
when an equipment failure at a transformer substation shut off power for
tens of thousands of people in his city. The mayor first told CNN he was mulling whether to return to New York, but later decided he would, according to the Washington Examiner. He plans to fly back to the city Sunday morning, a spokesperson said. Late Saturday, the mayor issued several Twitter messages, indicating he was monitoring the situation back home. "With
the power back on, I’ve directed City agencies to investigate this
evening’s blackout," he wrote. "They’ll work with ConEd to get to the
bottom of what happened tonight and prevent another widespread outage
like this." Meanwhile, the
governor was in New York City, speaking to reporters just before
midnight. He confirmed that power had been restored to all affected
customers. “This could have been much worse,” Cuomo added,
commending emergency responders. “When things are at their worst New
Yorkers are at their best.” The governor said he would be working
with utility company Con Edison to make sure a blackout of Saturday’s
magnitude doesn’t happen again.
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:57 AM PT – Friday, July 12, 2019
President Trump announced Labor Secretary Alex Acosta will be
stepping down, following the heat he received this week over the decades
old Jeffrey Epstein plea deal. Acosta joined the president as he spoke to reporters outside the
White House Friday. President Trump offered praise for the embattled
official, and said the Labor Department’s number two official — Patrick
Pizzella — will take over as acting secretary. Acosta also blasted the media over its coverage connecting Epstein to
the Labor Department before saying he would step aside for the greater
good of the administration.
Labor
Secretary Alex Acosta, right, accompanied President Donald Trump, left,
speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in
Washington, Friday, July 12, 2019, before Trump boards Marine One for a
short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. and then on to Wisconsin. (AP
Photo/Andrew Harnik)
“I do not think it is right and fair for this administration’s Labor
Department to have Epstein as the focus rather than the incredible
economy that we have today and, so I called the president this morning
and I told him that I thought the right thing was to step aside,” he
stated. “You know, cabinet positions are temporary trusts — it would be
selfish for me to stay in this position and continue talking about a
case that’s 12 years old rather than about the amazing economy we have
right now.” This comes after Acosta defended his 2008 non-prosecution agreement
with Epstein lawyers when he was a U.S. attorney in Southern Florida.
The agreement kept alleged sex-trafficking victims in the dark about the
so-called “sweetheart deal.”
….Alex was a great Secretary of Labor and his
service is truly appreciated. He will be replaced on an acting basis by
Pat Pizzella, the current Deputy Secretary.
Vice President Mike Pence blasted CNN
late Friday night for what he described as the network's "dishonest"
coverage of his trip to a migrant detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Pence, along with reporters and a group of GOP lawmakers, flew to McAllen, Texas,
where he participated in a roundtable discussion with Border Patrol
agents and toured a detention center. The vice president spoke with
several migrant children and asked about their treatment at the facility
with the help of a translator.
CNN's primetime coverage, however, featured only visuals of a large group of adult male migrants
behind a fence attempting to engage with reporters. During CNN's
"Anderson Cooper 360" program, the network played Pence's interview with
CNN senior White House correspondent Pamela Brown on a split screen,
showing only footage of the adult migrants and none of the footage of
Pence visiting with children.
Later,
CNN's Chris Cuomo criticized Pence's interview remarks and accused him
of providing "spin" on the facility conditions. "Cuomo Prime Time" also
made no reference to Pence's visit with the children.
The vice president apparently took notice, as evidenced by Twitter posts.
"CNN
is so dishonest. Today we took reporters to a detention facility on the
border for families and children and all told us they were being
treated well," Pence began. "The crisis at our southern border is not a
'manufactured crisis,' it is real and is overwhelming our system. To
show this, we also visited an overcrowded facility for adult men, many
of whom have been arrested multiple times. These men were in a temporary
holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund
additional bed space."
He continued: "Rather than broadcast the
full story, showing the compassionate care the American people are
providing to vulnerable families, tonight CNN only played video of men
in the temporary facility and didn’t play any footage of the family
facility at all... ignoring the excellent care being provided to
families and children. Our great @CBP agents deserve better and the
American people deserve the whole story from CNN!"
"Our great @CBP agents deserve better and the American people deserve the whole story from CNN!" — Vice President Mike Pence
CNN did not immediately respond to Pence's comments.
Several CNN anchors -- including Cooper, Cuomo, Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer -- previously rejected President Trump's warning earlier this year that there was a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"You
can build a physical barrier. But why say it's a cure-all to keep back
this demonized group of people, like this marauding horde that doesn't
exist. [Trump] created all of this. It's all bogus," Cuomo said Jan. 11.
"Let's
talk about his imaginary Latin-American migrant conspiracy," Lemon said
April 24. "This is part of a long history of him making things up about
the caravan and the border crisis."
"President Trump will speak
tonight from the Oval Office, trying to sell his border wall to a
doubtful nation, as his administration uses falsehoods and misstatements
to build the case for what it calls a crisis on the border," Blitzer
said Jan. 8.
"Now, it's not our job to advocate for or against a
given policy," Cooper said Jan. 8. "It's our job to call out the
dishonest pursuit of it. So, as we wait for the president to speak about
what he calls the crisis on the border, we're starting with the crisis
of credibility he's created for himself." Fox News media reporter Brian Flood contributed to this report.
The official House Democrats Twitter account took a shot at the chief of staff of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday night, responding belatedly, but strongly, to a comment he made weeks ago, directed at U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas. "Who
is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American
woman of color?" the Democratic Caucus posted, in a comment directed at
Saikat Chakrabarti, who works for Ocasio-Cortez. The comment also seemed to be a dig at Ocasio-Cortez herself, following her recent comments accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of targeting progressive Democrats based on race. "Her
name is Congresswoman Davids, not Sharice," the House Democrats added.
"She is a phenomenal new member who flipped a red seat blue. Keep Her
Name Out Of Your Mouth." Pelosi said Thursday
she recently addressed -- “at the request of my members” -- an
“offensive tweet that came out of one of the member's offices” that
compared centrist Democrats to segregationists. That tweet was authored
and then deleted by Chakrabarti. Ocasio-Cortez has since accused Pelosi of being “disrespectful” to several “newly elected women of color.” The
House Democrats' tweet included a screenshot of Chakrabarti's response
to someone on Twitter saying that while Davids is not racist her votes
are "enabling a racist system." "I think the point still stands. I
don't think people have to be personally racist to enable a racist
system. And the same could even be said of the Southern Democrats. I
don't believe Sharice is a racist person, but her votes are showing her
to enable a racist system," Chakrabarti tweeted on June 27, the night of
the second Democratic presidential debate in Miami. Chakrabarti
responded to the House Democrats' Twitter handle Friday night, asking
why they did not point out that he was responding to someone else who
brought up Davids. "Why did you leave that out?" he asked. "I've
known Rep. Davids for a long time, consider her a friend, and
encouraged her to run for Congress back in the fall of 2016. I'm glad
she did," Chakrabarti tweeted. "Everything I tweeted 2 weeks ago
was to call out the terrible border funding bill that 90+ Dems opposed.
It gave Trump a blank check to continue caging people in horrendous
conditions. Our Democracy is literally falling apart. I'm not interested
in substance-less Twitter spats," Chakrabarti said in a follow-up
tweet. Fox News' Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
Authorities in Colorado restored an American flag to
its place Friday evening after protesters demonstrating outside a U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility pulled down the
star-spangled banner and flew the flag of Mexico in its place. The
protesters also removed a “Blue Lives Matter” flag, honoring law
enforcement, spray-painted it with the words “Abolish ICE,” then raised
the flag upside-down, on a pole next to the Mexican flag, according to
local media. Hundreds of protesters had gathered in Aurora, Colo., outside the federal facility that holds illegal immigrants, to protest ICE raids scheduled to begin Sunday in Denver and other major U.S. cities, FOX 31 Denver reported. Aurora
police Chief Nick Metz said the majority of protesters remained
peaceful and some even thanked officers for their evening efforts. The
protest, part of a network of #LightsForLiberty events, also dubbed the
“March to Close Concentration Camps,” called for detention centers at
the U.S.-Mexico border to be closed and for all immigrants being held in
those locations to be granted entry to the U.S., according to the
event’s Facebook page. Beginning Sunday, ICE agents will reportedly work to round up thousands of illegal immigrants across the U.S. President
Trump delayed the operation by two weeks to allow Dems to propose a
bipartisan solution to the humanitarian crisis at the border. Speaking
to Fox News during his visit to the border Friday, Vice President Mike
Pence said the upcoming ICE raids will not be done at random and will be
focused on “removing those deported by courts.” Besides Denver,
the raids were expected to take place in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago,
Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. Raids scheduled
for New Orleans may be delayed due to Tropical Storm Barry, KCNC reported.
Other #LightsForLiberty protests took place across the U.S. Friday,
including in San Ysidro, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and New York City. Fox News’ Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
Although both are Democrats, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio,
left and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have had a strained relationship.
CNN’s Scott Jennings once again took liberals to the cleaners on the Abrego Garcia case, the ‘Maryland man...
