Action Alert Digest - March 17, 2021

March 17, 2021

Action Alert Digest

TAKE ACTION: Bring the Justice in Policing Act to a Vote

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, in addition to demilitarizing police, makes police more accountable, reforming qualified immunity, prohibiting racial profiling, banning excessive force, incentivizing the banning of chokeholds and carotid holds, and requiring the use of body cameras. World Beyond War invites us to tell Congress to bring the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to a vote. TAKE ACTION

US Accounts for Over One-Third of All Global Arms Sales

A new analysis of global weapons sales published this week revealed that the United States now accounts for well over a third of all arms exports worldwide over the last half-decade and nearly half of these weapons of war were sold to nations in the Middle East—a region beset by war and conflicts unleashed and exacerbated by American foreign policy. MORE

House Approves Bills Tightening Background Checks on Guns

The House has approved two pieces of legislation to strengthen background checks on firearm sales and transfers. The Bipartisan Background Checks Act helps to ensure individuals prohibited from possessing a gun are unable to obtain one. The legislation would implement new background check requirements for gun transfers between private parties. MORE

Britain Changes Policy So It Can Use Nuclear Weapons in Response To ‘Emerging Technologies’

The U.K.’s latest Integrated Defense Review includes a subtle line on when the country “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons if other countries use “weapons of mass destruction” against it. Such weapons include “emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact” to chemical, biological weapons, or other nuclear weapons. MORE

Restoring the Nuclear Deal with Iran Benefits U.S. Nonproliferation Priorities

Iran’s decision to violate the multilateral nuclear deal was a direct response to former President Trump’s decision a year earlier to withdraw from the accord and reimpose sanctions. While these breaches are troubling, Iran has gone to great lengths to keep the door open to restore full implementation of the nuclear deal and reverse Iran’s violations, if the United States lifts sanctions in compliance with its obligations under the accord, but time is of the essence. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Pass the Dream and Promise Act

The House is expected to vote on the Dream and Promise Act (H.R.6) this week. This bill is a crucial first step in a process to create a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented persons living in the United States today. United We Dream urges us to tell our U.S. Representatives to support the Dream and Promise Act. TAKE ACTION

Why Smugglers Are Tagging U.S.-Bound Migrants with Wristbands

Smugglers and drug cartels are using wristbands to track migrants who are willing to pay for help to cross into the United States. The information on the bracelets represents a multitude of data that is used by smuggling organizations, such as payment status or affiliation with smuggling groups. The categorization system illustrates the sophistication of organized criminal groups ferrying people across the U.S.-Mexico border. MORE

Hundreds of Minors Are Crossing the Border Each Day Without Their Parents. Who Are They?

Who are the unaccompanied minors crossing the border? Statistics show that for the most recent influx, about half are from Mexico, a shift from the previous trend when most were from Central America. Most are between ages 15 to 17 and 70% are boys. Some are fleeing violence, poverty, and gang recruitment, risking the dangerous trip north in hope of finding safety or maybe a job that will pay exponentially more than they could make at home. MORE

Environmental Justice Plays a Key Role in Biden’s Covid-19 Stimulus Package

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package includes $100 million to address harmful air quality and environmental health risks in minority and low-income communities. The provision begins to make good on the president’s environmental justice pledges and marks for the first time federal recognition of the scientific links found between Covid outcomes and pollution exposure. MORE

U.S. Ships More Plastic Waste Overseas Despite New Global Restrictions

Over 180 countries agreed last year to place strict limits on plastic waste exportation to poor countries, but new trade data from January shows that plastic exports from the United States have increased. Participating nations added plastic scrap to a treaty that places restrictions on shipping hazardous waste. However, the U.S. has continued to send large shipments overseas to poor countries in the months since the addition took effect. MORE

E.U. Moves to Hold Companies Accountable for Human Rights and Environmental Abuses

The European Union this week voted to progress with proposed legislation that will require companies to conduct due diligence throughout their supply chains and investigate human rights and environmental abuses. It is hoped that this legislation will be a significant step towards holding the public and private sector accountable for extractive, exploitative practices that fuel human trafficking and forced labor. MORE

Forced Marriage is Human Trafficking

All types of human trafficking involve force, fraud, and coercion. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines forced marriage as "involuntary servitude." Forced marriage is when one or both participants are married without consent or are too young to legally give consent, and occurs due to emotional and financial threats, pressure, or coercion. This phenomenon occurs in many countries of the world, including the United States. MORE

Thousands Across Australia March Against Sexual Violence

Wearing black and holding signs reading “enough is enough,” thousands took to the streets across Australia to protest violence and discrimination against women, as a reckoning in the country’s halls of power sparked by multiple accusations of rape continued to grow. The marches in at least 40 cities represented an outpouring of anger from women, said the organizers, who estimated that 110,000 people attended the demonstrations nationwide. MORE

World Health Organization: One in Three Women Are Subjected to Violence

One in three women globally, around 736 million, have been subjected to physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes, according to a new analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO). The new report suggests that, although the number of women affected by violence has remained largely unchanged since the last global WHO study in 2013, this violence starts at a young age. MORE

Dating App Tinder Is Adding Background Checks for Violence or Abuse

The popular dating app Tinder will soon launch a background-check function on its platform, a move to guard users against gender-based violence. The company that also owns dating platforms Match.com, and Plenty of Fish, announced it will implement its technology on Tinder, and then its other dating services, later this year. The feature could make Tinder, a dating app that's skirted screening measures for its free services in the past, a safer place for singles. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Senate to Support Voting Rights

The For the People Act is the democracy reform bill the American people want and deserve. This legislation will put power back into the hands of American voters by making voting easier and more accessible and by modernizing future elections. The League of Women Voters urges us to tell the Senate to support the For the People Act (S1). TAKE ACTION

5 Ways the Stimulus Package Is Expected to Reduce Poverty

President Joe Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion relief package represents one of the largest federal efforts to reduce poverty in the last half-century. The massive legislation, which the President signed last week, provides aid to low-income Americans in numerous ways. The package's key measures are expected to slash the poverty rate by about a third and reduce the share of children in poverty by more than half. MORE

Why the Amazon Worker Vote in Alabama Means So Much

Amazon currently employs over half a million workers in the United States. But not just Amazon workers figure to benefit from the outcome of the Bessemer, Alabama unionization vote that ends later this month. The votes that Amazon’s Bessemer workers are casting could change the economic trajectory that has turned the United States — over the past half-century — into the world’s most unequal wealthy nation. MORE

Ramiro Gonzales is scheduled to be executed on April 20 by the state of Texas for the murder of Bridget Townsend. Please hold Ramiro, Bridget, their families, and the people of Texas in prayer. TAKE ACTION