REP RO KHANNA: A commonsense, bipartisan plan for immigration

The crisis in Los Angeles is a test of federalism and American values.
I unequivocally condemn anyone who engaged in political violence, vandalism or harassed law enforcement. There is no denying that violence we saw from some of the protesters in LA was wrong.
But President Donald Trump's attempt to override California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom's authority over the National Guard was not prudent and damaged the principle of limited federal power. Californians did not ask for the Marines or the National Guard. They wanted local and state law enforcement to restore order.
In a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, I asked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth if he would abide by a district court ruling if they were to decide that deploying active-duty troops to Los Angeles was illegal. He refused to say if he would obey the district courts. Only after being pushed again by Maryland Democrat Rep. Sarah Elfreth, did he acknowledge that he would obey the Supreme Court.
The administration's disregard for checks and balances and nonchalance about following court orders should be alarming to every American.
We need leaders of both parties to stand up for the Constitution and offer a commonsense plan for those undocumented immigrants who are paying taxes and working hard.
Even Trump is starting to recognize this. After facing backlash from industry leaders, he appeared to be considering an exemption for farms, hotels, and restaurants from the ICE raids, which his administration has now reversed.
Of the 2.4 million farmworkers in the U.S., an estimated 40% lack legal status. They are critical to our country's food production.
Instead of deporting all hardworking farmworkers, we need to create a path to legalization and citizenship. That is why I support the bipartisan "Farm Workforce Modernization Act" that would create a program for agricultural workers to earn legal status through continued employment.
Now is the time to pass bipartisan legislation, Mr. President. Let's pass a law supporting a path to legalization and the citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are working hard and paying taxes in, as you define it, farming, hotels, and restaurants. Doing so would be a first step in getting something done on immigration and bringing this country together instead of just hurling insults at each other.
More broadly, as Americans stand up for due process at town halls and at rallies, we should understand what peaceful protest, at its best, looks like.
We can take inspiration from the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and my grandfather, Amarnath Vidyalankar, who was an Indian freedom fighter. He spent several years in jail as part of Gandhi's movement. I am reminded of how the freedom fighters dressed well, were polite, and avoided confrontation with law enforcement. The same was true of civil rights freedom riders. We need this discipline today in order to break through and claim the moral high ground.
We should also share the story of immigrants who believe in hard work, love of country, and patriotism. This was the story Mario Cuomo told about his uneducated father who worked 16-hour days and bled from the bottom of his feet. In my case, my father woke up at the crack of dawn to be one of the first at his workplace. My parents taught me that by being born in America I won the lottery. They instilled in me a love for American history, for the English language, and for our country's story and a relentless commitment to hard work.
I believe by creating pathways to legalization and citizenship for hardworking immigrants who pay taxes, we can have social cohesion and build a nation where everyone can thrive.
That spirit of finding common ground is what will allow our democracy to lead over China and be a model to the world.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

CBS News

8 minutes ago

• CBS News

Former Detroit home of Rosa Parks in line for historic district designation

A proposal is pending for the former Detroit home of Civil Rights Movement activists Rosa and Raymond Parks to be named a local historic district. The Detroit City Council Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee will hold a public hearing to consider the proposal. The designation is intended to honor the flat in the 3200 block of Virginia Park Street where Civil Rights activists Rosa and Raymond Parks lived for 27 years. "Their activism in Detroit helped shape the Civil Rights Movement," the Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board said on its social media post. A public hearing, which is part of the designation process, will begin at 10:35 a.m. June 26 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Woodward Avenue. Detroit's local historic districts are meant to be associated with people or events that are a significant part of Detroit's history, or have artistic or historical significance. Once a local historic district is established for a site, any exterior alterations to the building must go through the Historic District Commission. Rosa Parks, who was already active in the Civil Rights Movement, became known for her refusal to follow the Jim Crow-era laws in Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically, she refused to give up her seat on a bus and move to the back of the vehicle on Dec. 1, 1955. Her arrest in that incident helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott. After the boycott, Rosa and Raymond Parks moved to Hampton, Virginia, and then settled in Detroit. He died in 1977. She died in 2005.

Yahoo

12 minutes ago

• Yahoo

An inflation surge could swamp Trump's presidency. This one investment will keep your money safe.

America's financial outlook has darkened under President Donald Trump's leadership. All three major credit-rating agencies now rank U.S. federal debt one notch below triple-A, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase JPM, has warned of a crack in the U.S. bond market. With the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y at 4.4% on Wednesday and the 30-year rate BX:TMUBMUSD30Y at 4.9%, holders of nominal U.S. debt should be prepared for significant real losses. The principal risk is not U.S. sovereign default, but rather unexpected increases in medium- and long-term interest rates, owing to market expectations of higher inflation. Fiscal policy under Trump is unsustainable, as it was under former President Joe Biden — but even more so if the Trump administration's 'big, beautiful' budget passes in anything like its current form. 'I'm at my wit's end': My niece paid off her husband's credit card but fell behind on her taxes. How can I help her? Why the biggest-ever 'triple witching' options expiration could deliver a jolt to Friday's trading Israel-Iran clash delivers a fresh shock to investors. History suggests this is the move to make. 'I prepaid our mom's rent for a year': My sister is a millionaire and never helps our mother. How do I cut her out of her will? I'm 75 and have a reverse mortgage. Should I pay it off with my $200K savings — and live off Social Security instead? The January 2025 Financial Report of the United States Government makes this clear. The U.S. ratio of federal debt held by the public to GDP at the end of the 2024 fiscal year was around 98%, although $4.7 trillion of the $28.3 trillion in federal debt was held by the Federal Reserve — meaning it is erroneously categorized as held by the 'public,' when really the central bank's accounts should be consolidated with those of the federal government. Under current policy and based on the report's assumptions, federal debt held by the public would reach 535% of GDP by 2099. Stabilizing the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio requires that the annual primary federal deficit (excluding interest payments) fall by an average of 4.3% of GDP over the next 75 years. And yet, the federal deficit and primary deficit were 6.4% and 3.3% of GDP, respectively, in fiscal-year 2024 — far above what can be justified with the economy near full employment. Read: America's debt is at a breaking point — Trump's tax bill might just push it over the edge With the U.S. Congress so dysfunctional, no one has any faith that it will deliver the required deficit reduction. Democrats do not do permanent spending cuts, and Republicans do not do permanent tax increases. The federal government does own about 28% of U.S. land (roughly 640 million acres), as well as other real commercial assets that could yield significant additional nontax revenues if properly managed. But neither party — nor even the misnamed Department of Government Efficiency — appears to have considered this option, so the federal deficit as a share of GDP is likely to rise over the next few years. With no foreseeable improvement in fiscal policy, there are two possible outcomes. First, the U.S. government could default. There has long been a small, but recurrent, risk of a technical, short-lived default if Congress fails to raise, suspend, extend, revise or abolish the federal debt ceiling on time. Fortunately, it has averted this scenario 78 times since 1960, and we expect it to continue doing so. As matters stand, the debt ceiling (including debt held by federal agencies) is set at $36.1 trillion, and debt subject to the limit is also $36.1 trillion. If needed, the Treasury has a highly liquid asset (the Treasury General Account held with the Fed) worth $332.9 billion that it can use to meet its obligations, and it may temporarily use 'extraordinary measures to continue to borrow additional amounts for a limited time.' The second, more likely possibility is that the Fed will monetize enough federal debt to prevent default. Since U.S. federal debt is serviced in dollars, 'printing money' is always an option. But, as the Fed well knows, a large-scale monetization of federal debt would result in significantly above-target inflation. We believe the Fed will do this without its operational independence being revoked by Trump. To get the Federal Open Market Committee to do something it does not want to do, the president would need to control the majority of its 12 voting members. These include the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and five (out of 12) regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents who vote at any given FOMC meeting. Neither the president nor Congress can appoint or fire Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The Board of Governors must approve them, and only the board can remove them. The president nominates board members, but the Senate must confirm them. Board members' current term limits imply that, assuming none are fired, Trump will have the opportunity to nominate only two new members. True, with the power to fire board members 'for cause' — meaning 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance' — Trump could try to replace a majority of the members with loyalists. But this seems unlikely. Whether the 'for cause' criterion has been met will be contested in the courts, and the Senate would have to confirm Trump's appointees. Read: Trump's pick to replace Fed Chair Powell could rock your mortgage and retirement. Buckle up. Similarly, Congress could revise the Federal Reserve Act to replace the Fed's monetary-policy objectives with a mandate to buy or sell sovereign debt according to the wishes of the Treasury. But this, too, is unlikely. And the same goes for a scenario in which the Treasury sets a rapidly depreciating exchange-rate target for the dollar DXY that can be achieved only through large-scale Fed purchases of U.S. public debt that generate high inflation. However, fiscal dominance — indeed, fiscal capture — is very likely, because the need to avoid a domestic and global financial crisis will force the FOMC's hand. It will do whatever is necessary to prevent a U.S. government default, because the Fed's financial-stability mandate (the Financial Stability Act of 2010 mentions the Fed 179 times) undoubtedly trumps its monetary-policy mandate of maintaining maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates. The Fed cannot credibly threaten to refuse to monetize debt and deficits to compel fiscal retrenchment by the Treasury, let alone Congress. Thus, the Fed will have no choice but to engage in sovereign-debt purchases that it knows to be incompatible with its monetary-policy objectives. With nominal interest rates for medium- and long-term U.S. sovereign debt far below the levels consistent with realistic expectations of future inflation, serious capital losses on nominal debt instruments (public and private) are likely. The inflation surge could be no more than three years away. As the prospect of fiscal capture comes into view, investing in Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) and other indexed public and private debt instruments will become increasingly attractive. Willem H. Buiter, a former chief economist at Citibank and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, is an independent economic adviser. Anne C. Sibert is professor emerita of economics at Birkbeck, University of London. This commentary — 'U.S. Debt Holders Should Brace for Impact' — is published with the permission of Project Syndicate. Read: 'You are going to panic,' Jamie Dimon tells regulators about what will happen when the bond market cracks More: What's at stake if world's most powerful market finally buckles after decades-long U.S. debt splurge 20 companies in the S&P 500 whose investors have gained the greatest rewards from stock buybacks Israel-Iran conflict poses three challenges for stocks that could slam market by up to 20%, warns RBC I'm 51, earn $129K and have $165K in my 401(k). Can I afford to retire when my husband, 59, draws Social Security at 62? 'It might be another Apple or Microsoft': My wife invested $100K in one stock and it exploded 1,500%. Do we sell? Why the stock market will be performing a high-wire act over the summer, according to UBS

Bloomberg

14 minutes ago

• Bloomberg

Bloomberg Surveillance: Israel, Markets, Supply Chains

Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: Bloomberg Surveillance hosted by Tom Keene & Paul Sweeney June 20th, 2025 Featuring: 1) Dan Williams, Bloomberg News reporter, on President Donald Trump signaling he would give diplomacy a chance before deciding whether to strike Iran, dialing back on recent comments that suggested military action could be imminent. 2) David Katz, President and CIO of Matrix Asset Advisors, on why he is hopeful there will be some clarity in the current conflict in the upcoming months. After that, however, we will then return to the week to week and month to month uncertainties with Tariff and the current tax and spending bill that's making its way through congress. 3) Alisa Rusanoff, CEO at Eltech, on what risks lender are currently facing in the shipping space. 4) Lisa Mateo joins with the latest headlines in newspapers across the US, including a WSJ story on how side hustles nowadays are more about necessity than a passion. Plus, a Bloomberg report about Capital One's New JFK Lounge Makes a Play for Premium Travelers