Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak speaks in front of a Biden-Harris campaign bus near an early voting site at the Boulevard mall Saturday, Oct. 17, 2020.
Sunday, April 24, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Gov. Steve Sisolak sent a letter to President Joe Biden last week asking him to reconsider his intention to roll back Title 42 without a detailed plan in place and to make a pathway to citizenship a priority.
Title 42 is a Trump-era policy enacted in March 2020 that gives U.S. border officials the right to refuse entry to migrants to mitigate COVID-19. Biden announced his plans to roll back the policy effective May 23.
“To be clear,” Sisolak wrote, “asylum seekers and migrants hoping to legally immigrate to the United States should be afforded every proper opportunity to do so, and as COVID-19 enters the endemic stage with vaccines and testing readily available, it is time to reevaluate the public health measures in place.”
But lifting Title 42 without another plan in place, Sisolak argues, would “create chaos at our border” and “make it more onerous for families attempting to immigrate legally.”
“As governor of a state that is home to approximately 4,000 Temporary Protected Status holders, 12,000 Dreamers and more than 5,000 people impacted by a green card backlog, I urge the administration to prioritize a pathway to citizenship that supports families and our economy without putting unnecessary burdens on our immigration system. They’ve waited long enough.”
Sisolak joins Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen and a small group of Democrats in opposing Biden’s decision.
“This is the wrong way to do this and it will leave the administration unprepared for a surge at the border,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “We should be working to fix our immigration system by investing in border security and treating immigrant families with dignity. Instead, the administration is acting without a detailed plan.”
Although rare, it’s something on which both Nevada’s Democrat and Republican representatives seem to agree.
“With all of the uncertainty and chaos going on at the border,” Republican Rep. Mark Amodei said in an email, “removing critical public health-related structure from a process already in shambles is probably the last straw to confirming for everyone that our southern border is for all intents and purposes open.”
The Department of Homeland Security is preparing for both a potential increase in migration and how it would curb the spread of COVID-19. Border control agents provide personal protection equipment to migrants who cannot be expelled under Title 42, and migrants are required to wear masks at all times.
Homeland Security also provides vaccines to noncitizens in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In March the department began expanding those efforts to “further safeguard public health and ensure the safety of border communities.”
Some Republicans have used the issue to accuse Cortez Masto of flip-flopping on Title 42, since she previously had opposed the Title 42 policy.
“Catherine Cortez Masto conveniently changed her stance on Title 42 because she cares more about plummeting poll numbers than she does about serving Nevadans,” said Katharine Cooksey, press secretary for the National Republican Senate Committee in a statement to the Sun.
But it seems Cortez Masto’s point is that while it is a bad policy, a better plan should replace it.
Nevada’s immigration advocates are with Biden, calling Title 42
“cruel and inhumane” and saying it repeal is “long overdue.”
“People fleeing danger should be welcomed with dignity and given meaningful access to the United States’ legal asylum process — without reliance on detention,” the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada said in a letter to Nevada’s federal delegation.
The Nevada Immigrant Coalition strongly urged Cortez Masto and the other Nevada congressional delegates to vote no on any amendments to the COVID-19 relief bill that block access to asylum at the border.
“We strongly support the administration’s plan to revoke Title 42 and urge you to continue to stand in solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers,” the coalition wrote.
Coin-toss elections
Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns, released its latest U.S. House ratings, and it’s another bleak forecast for Nevada Democrats.
The Democratic-held seats of District 3 (Rep. Susie Lee)
and District 4 (Rep. Steven Horsford) were changed from “lean Democratic” to “toss up.”
The report cites inflation concerns and the stalling of Biden’s Build Back Better package as reasons the political environment has deteriorated for Democrats.
“That means no Democrat in a single-digit Biden (or Trump-won) district is secure, and even some seats Biden carried by double-digit margins in 2020 could come into play this fall,” the report says.
Several Republican challengers are vying to faceRep. Dina Titus’, including lawyer April Becker, engineer Clark Bossert, business owner John Kovacs, retired Col. Mark Robertson and engineer Noah Malgeri.
Those aiming to unseat Horsford include Assemblywoman Annie Black, campaign adviser Chance Bonaventura and retired Air Force Maj. Sam Peters.
Titus’ seat is still labeled as “lean Democratic,” and Amodei’s seat, which is in the heavily conservative district of Northern Nevada, isn’t listed.
The change mirrors the “midterm penalty” trend in which a sitting president’s party does poorly. Back in November 2021, Cortez Masto’s seat was also changed from “lean Democratic” to a “toss up,” joining Arizona and Georgia’s Senate seats, and recent polls have signaled Democrats are losing what leads they have.
Governor candidates talk CRT, gender, crime
GOP gubernatorial candidates — minus Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo — shared their vision to improve education during a Las Vegas forum last week, saying they’d institute vouchers, split the Clark County School District and fire anyone who’s not doing a good job.
But no Republican conversation about education is complete without touching on critical race theory, transgender students participating in sports and the teaching of sexual identity.
“When a 5-year-old goes to kindergarten, this is what I want that child to learn,” former Sen. Dean Heller said during the Republican Women of Las Vegas luncheon. “I want that child to learn colors and numbers and the alphabet. I do not want it to learn sex education. I don’t want them to be taught that they are oppressed or being oppressed. And I want to make sure that men compete in men’s sports and women compete in women’s sports.”
Candidates took turns jabbing Lombardo, especially on crime.
“He needs to stay and do his job or at least get out of the way so we can get somebody else in there who will really go to work for us,” North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee said.
Heller praised the Trump-appointed federal judge who overturned the mandate to wear masks on public transportation, saying his flight from Reno to Las Vegas was “wonderful” because he didn’t have to wear a mask.
Reno lawyer Joey Gilbert detailed how he would make sure no future governor could abuse their power and institute a two-year emergency mandate or implement COVID-19 mandates.
“The problem is (the) government overreaching their legal boundaries on any situation within our personal lives,” said Gilbert, who last week said as governor he would institute an emergency declaration and take over public schools.
Your senators’ moves
Rosen will sign on to the Empowering Medicare Seniors to Negotiate Drug Prices Act that authorizes Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D by harnessing the bargaining power of the program for bigger discounts.
“Nevadans are dealing with rising prices and being forced to make difficult decisions because of the outrageous and skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs,” Rosen said in the statement. “This would be a game-changer helping to bring down costs at the pharmacy for so many Nevada seniors, particularly for those on fixed incomes struggling to make ends meet.”
Also, Cortez Masto visited Mission High School to discuss her efforts to secure more than $122 billion to help reopen K-12 schools through the American Rescue Plan and provide students with mental health support.
Countdown
Days until early voting: 34
Days to primary: 50
Days to midterms: 197
