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— Edited by Shawna Chen
The Biden Era
✍️ WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS $810M PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP STRATEGY WITH AN EYE ON CHINA: Following the inaugural U.S. Pacific Islands Summit in September, Pacific Islander leaders and President Joe Biden released a Declaration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership outlining big picture goals on climate change, disaster response, economic development.
- The strategy: The White House also released a roadmap for implementation, including the creation of the first-ever Pacific Partnership Strategy, which calls on the U.S. to support Pacific nations’ 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent by building climate resilience, bolstering marine conservation, expanding economic and educational opportunities, and fortifying health care infrastructure.
- Uphill battle: Attempting to compensate for decades of disengagement in the Pacific amid concerns about China’s growing influence, the Biden administration is committing upwards of $810 million to the Pacific Partnership Strategy—yet skepticism remains around the likelihood of long-term U.S. commitments in the region, per POLITICO’s Phelim Kine.
- Lingering tensions: The declaration came a day after the Solomon Islands initially refused to sign on, Kine reports. Other Pacific nations, such as the Marshall Islands, are still waiting on the U.S. to take accountability for its nuclear legacy in the region.
HHS MOVES TO IMPROVE LANGUAGE ACCESS: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new actions on Oct. 6 to address language barriers in health care.
- What’s included: HHS plans to relaunch its Language Access Steering Committee, led by the department’s Office for Civil Rights. The Committee is charged with updating the HHS Language Access Strategic Plan and implementing the plan within individual HHS agencies.
- Following through on an earlier funding opportunity, the Office of Minority Health (OMH) also announced the awarding of $4 million in grants to 11 organizations, including Asian Resources, Inc. and Asian Health Coalition, as part of a three-year initiative to address language access services.
⚖️ DACA PROGRAM STILL IN LIMBO: On Oct. 5, a federal appeals court sent a case challenging the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program back to a lower court in Texas to review the DACA final rule released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in August—which is set to take effect on Oct. 31.
- The latest: The Texas judge ruled on Oct. 14, in line with his initial ruling last year, to keep DACA in place for current recipients, although the federal government is still prohibited from approving new DACA applications, CBS News’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports. The legality of the new DHS regulations—and DACA as a whole—is expected to face scrutiny again in the future.
- Don’t forget: An estimated 1.7 million undocumented Asian Americans live in the United States. The approval of new DACA applications has been blocked since the Texas ruling last year, and the ultimate fate of the program remains unclear given congressional deadlock.
? DATA POINT—LABOR BEGINS TRACKING NHPI UNEMPLOYMENT: For the first time, the Department of Labor’s unemployment data included Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) as a category on its own. In September, unemployment rates ticked down across all racial groups, with NHPIs at 3.7% and Asians at 2.5% compared to 3.5% for all Americans.
? MAKING MOVES—Sabrina Singh has announced her appointment as deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense. Singh, who served as Vice President Kamala Harris’ deputy press secretary until her high-profile departure in March, became the first person of Indian descent to be appointed press secretary to a vice presidential campaign of a major political party during the 2020 election, according to The Print’s Revathi Krishnan.
On The Hill
? JAN. 6 COMMITTEE AIRS CHAO’S TESTIMONY: Former President Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in recent weeks—even once referring to her as McConnell’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow”—and at the House Jan. 6 committee’s final hearing last week, it was clear why.
- In her words: “I think the events at the capitol, however they occurred, were shocking. And it was something … that I could not put aside,” Chao said in an audio clip played at the hearing. “And at a particular point, the events were such, that it was impossible for me to continue given my personal values and my philosophy.”
- “I came as an immigrant to this country. I believe in this country. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in democracy. And so … it was a decision that I made on my own.”
- How it happened: Chao, a Taiwanese American immigrant, was the first Cabinet secretary to resign from her role in the Trump administration after the insurrection. Trump has since used racist rhetoric to denigrate her—with many Republican lawmakers refusing to explicitly condemn it.
- Her testimony, which bookended a summer of explosive public hearings on Trump’s actions leading up to and during the Capitol riots, is expected to figure into the House committee’s next moves.
? CA CAUCUS PRESSES SENATORS ON ARROWOOD: The California Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus (AAPILC) is calling on senators to oppose Biden’s nomination of federal prosecutor Casey Arrowood as U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Tennessee, citing Arrowood’s record pursuing cases against Chinese Americans under the controversial China Initiative.
- Flashback: Arrowood led the Justice Department’s failed prosecution of Anming Hu, a researcher at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville whom FBI agents accused of spying for the Chinese government. One agent testified during Hu’s trial, however, that he based the espionage implications off a Google-translated webpage. The case fell apart shortly after, with a judge tossing out the charges of wire fraud.
- What they’re saying: “Mr. Arrowood’s xenophobic and unjust prosecution feeds into harmful anti-Asian American stereotypes that incited a rise in hate incidents and violence against our community,” California state Sen. Richard Pan (D), chair of AAPILC, wrote in a Sept. 27 letter to Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California). “[I]t would be [a] stunning betrayal of the public trust that an Assistant U.S. Attorney who chose twice to pursue an unwarranted prosecution of an Asian American on behalf of the racist ‘China Initiative’ would be rewarded with an appointment as a U.S. Attorney.”
- AAPILC is part of a larger coalition pushing the president to withdraw his nomination. Over 1,700 people—including scientists, researchers, public servants, and civil rights advocates—have signed on, according to the APA Justice Task Force, a nonpartisan platform aimed at combating racial profiling.
DUCKWORTH PRODS THE VA ON ABORTION: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) is among dozens of Democratic lawmakers, veterans groups, and advocacy organizations urging the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to commit to removing barriers to abortion access.
- Post-Roe notice: The VA announced last month that it would offer veterans and beneficiaries abortion counseling but only abortions in cases of rape, incest, and if the pregnant person’s life is at risk.
- “If the VA has the legal authority to go further and provide all abortion care to our Veterans, then it certainly should,” Duckworth—an Iraq War veteran, retired Army lieutenant colonel, and a Purple Heart recipient—tweeted last week. “The lives of our women heroes shouldn’t have to be endangered for them to receive healthcare or for our country to recognize their basic rights.”
- Raising awareness: Duckworth has also made it a point to speak out about how abortion restrictions could make in vitro fertilization more difficult, The 19th’s Jennifer Gerson writes.
?️ ASIAN AMERICANS SLAM STEEL ON ‘RED-BAITING’ PLAY: Rep. Judy Chu (D-California), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, joined a chorus of voices last week condemning Rep. Michelle Steel (R-California) for sending out mailers claiming Democratic challenger Jay Chen is spreading communist ideology, Los Angeles Times’ Jeong Park reports.
- Longtime fears of communism: The mailers, which showed Chen photoshopped in front of a classroom of children with a copy of “The Communist Manifesto” in hand, are part of a bid to win over the district’s large Vietnamese population, the Times’ Seema Mehta and Anh Do note.
- Hitting back: Chen, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, responded by pointing out that his grandmother fled communist China and that he has top secret security clearance as a Naval Reserve officer. “I thought it was really absurd and, beyond that, really dangerous the way she is exploiting fears within the immigrant community for political gain.”
GABBARD EXITS: Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawai‘i) announced last week that she is leaving the Democratic Party. Gabbard, who was the first Samoan American voting member of Congress as well as the first Hindu Congress member, called the Democratic Party an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and invited her “common sense independent minded” colleagues to join her.
- Yes, but: It’s not a huge surprise. The former 2020 presidential candidate has drifted further and further right in recent years, the Honolulu Civil Beat’s Chad Blair writes.
2022 Watch
? LOCAL SNAPSHOT—IN OAKLAND, CROWDED MAYORAL RACE NARROWS: City Councilmember Sheng Thao (D), who became the first Hmong American woman to hold a city-level seat in California in 2018, will likely go head to head with fellow Councilmember Loren Taylor (D), who was endorsed by outgoing Mayor Libby Schaaf (D), in Oakland’s election for mayor this November, reports San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli and Sarah Ravani.
- Why it matters: Thao would be the second Asian American to hold the city’s top job after Jean Quan, Oakland’s first woman mayor, lost to Schaaf in her bid for re-election in 2015. Thao would represent a diverse population that is 15.8% Asian and 0.6% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. As of 2021, 34.4% of Oakland residents identify as white, 27% identify as Latino, and 22.7% identify as Black, and 0.9% identify as Native American, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Backed by big names: Thao has secured endorsements from labor unions and progressive names such as California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and the Alameda Democratic Party. Several of the state’s top elected officials, however, have thrown their support behind Taylor—including San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg (D).
- On edge: With what many have called an unprecedented rise in violent crime—and anti-Asian hate—in the city, voters are looking to candidates to address the issue. Thao has said she wants to hire the number of police officers currently budgeted, work to create a pipeline from Merritt College, and expand a pilot program that would dispatch civilians to respond to some non-violent 911 calls, the Chronicle’s Sarah Ravani notes.
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