ICE ROUND-UPS OF NON-CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS SKYROCKET IN SOUTHEAST: “ICE continues to focus its enforcement efforts on criminal offenders,” ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said in a statement to the Observer this week. “Claims of any type of random or indiscriminate enforcement by this agency are not accurate.” But in the Southeast, ICE has steadily been arresting more immigrants who lack a criminal record, according to an Observer analysis of data released by the agency last week. The Atlanta office for the agency, which oversees Georgia and the Carolinas, has not changed the number of people it detains each year across the region in the current administration: Since at least fall 2017, it apprehended about 1,230 immigrants each month. (Arrest numbers, however, are down from the early 2010s under President Obama.) In the past year and a half, though, the percentage of those arrested who lack criminal convictions or pending charges has been rising steadily, up almost 50% in the past two years for the Atlanta field office, from 7.75% to over 11.5%.
https://www.newsobserver.com/article232503812.html

BERGER FLIES OFF TO BERLIN DURING BUDGET STANDOFF: Just hours after Gov. Roy Cooper and Democratic legislative leaders delivered a new budget proposal to Republican legislative leaders, two of them were on their way out of the country. Senate leader Phil Berger of Rockingham County and Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, who is the Senate majority leader and a budget writer, were on their way to attend the Senate Presidents’ Forum summer 2019 conference in Berlin. According to the group’s website, there will be sessions on recent trade tariffs, Brexit and nationalist trends, and an update on the Middle East. The conference runs through July 14. The trip comes weeks after Republicans criticized Cooper for leaving the state for non-state business while attempting to set up budget negotiation meetings.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article232512972.html

DAN BISHOP LIKENS ANTI-LGBTQ CROWD TO JEWS DURING HOLOCAUST: The Republican candidate for an open House seat in North Carolina likened his efforts to undermine LGBTQ rights via religious exemptions to the work of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved Jews during the Holocaust. State Sen. Dan Bishop, the Republican nominee in the Sept. 10 do-over election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, made the remarks in email communications with conservative activist leaders in March 2017. The emails were obtained through a public records request by the liberal news site Real Facts NC, which published them online at the end of June. “As Oscar Schindler said, as many as we can,” Bishop replied, comparing his wish to see the maximum number of people exempted from local anti-discrimination laws to Schindler’s professed desire to hire, and therefore save, as many endangered European Jews as possible during World War II.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-bishop-bathroom-bill-repeal-oscar-schindlnorth-carolina-dan-mccre...

JULY 4 CITIZENSHIP EVENTS SHOW EMPTINESS OF LT. GOV'S ATTACK ON MULTICULTURALISM: Dan Forest wants us to believe, as he says he does, that North Carolina and the United States is a weaker place because of differences in background, nation of origin, forms of faith and worship. But he is wrong – and our nation’s unique and successful history is ample evidence. It is our nation’s ability to embrace those differences in a system where allegiance isn’t to any individual, royalty, family claims of divine right, or dictator whose power rests in fear. Citizens in the United States don’t swear allegiance to a president or any politician. Our allegiance is to the Constitution and the law. It was unique 243 years ago. It is the model of democracies that have followed. Dan Forest doesn’t get it. But we do. We support legal immigration. We support paths to citizenship. We welcome these newest citizens. We are a stronger nation for their participation and loyalty.
https://www.wral.com/editorial-july-4-citizenship-events-show-emptiness-of-lt-gov-s-attack-on-multic...

TRANSGENDER WOMAN ARRESTED AFTER BATHROOM CONFLICT: Police told the customer Lloyd was allowed to use the women’s restroom, The Shelby Star reports. While officers were at the scene, Lloyd came outside the business and yelled an expletive, according to the report. The customer who initially complained went back into the restaurant, where Lloyd spit toward him and his family, police say. Lloyd was taken to jail and charged with disorderly conduct, according to the arrest report. Denny’s, which has restaurants across the United States and in other countries, says it doesn’t “tolerate discrimination” and expects its customers to treat people equally. “Our bathrooms policies across the country allow guests to use the bathroom of their gender identity,” company spokesperson Hannah Rand wrote in an email to McClatchy.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article232258707.html