Opinion

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a recruitment message on social media this summer saying, “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”

Setting aside the racist overtones of this messaging, even DHS itself says it’s not true. Border crossings have fallen to an all-time low — DHS’s own website boasts about it. Moreover, federal data shows undocumented people have lower rates of criminal convictions than U.S.-born citizens.

Watch Columbus Protest video

500,000+ March in Labor Day “Workers Over Billionaires” Events Nationwide

This Labor Day, more than five hundred thousand laborers, families and community members showed their resistance against the billionaires and corporations who continue to hoard wealth and power at workers’ expense. 

This is a pivotal moment for working families. Billionaires are stealing public dollars, separating families and destroying U.S. democracy in their pursuit of profit, but in the streets and on the shop floor, in union halls and the halls of Congress, working people are rising up and fighting for freedom, fairness and security. Working Americans won’t be scared away by the billionaires taking over our government. 

Highlights include: 

• Durham workers marched demanding that Duke pay their fair share (X)

• Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates calls for solidarity (X)

Should your employer be allowed to ban you from taking another job? Most Americans would say that’s ridiculous — but it’s more common than you think.

When I was head of the policy office at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), I read thousands of public comments about how employers used “noncompete clauses” to trap workers into jobs. Many people shared deeply personal stories of being stuck in abusive workplaces, enduring punishing commutes, or working for years and years without a raise.

Noncompete clauses force workers to agree not to take a job with a competitor after they leave their position. They’re often framed as tools to prevent senior executives from taking trade secrets with them. But the evidence tells a different story.

Be afraid. The Trump Administration has “put on leave” — effectively fired — 35 experts from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for signing a letter to Trump saying that his mass elimination of emergency experts is threatening the lives of Americans. Another 155 signed but masked their names.

Trump’s announced scheme: completely eliminate FEMA and turn over emergency evacuation to privateers. 

The firings were pushed by Elon Musk when he headed DOGE. The cuts were the core cause of the deaths in the Kerr County, Texas flood.

Trump’s own appointed FEMA director, Cameron Hamilton, criticized the cutting of 2,000 emergency workers (a third of the agency’s staff) and the interference by political hacks, especially by Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, slowing down life-saving response to floods. Trump fired him, too.