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Somali Americans, Many Who Fled War, Now Seek Elected Office

It’s a busy Friday afternoon at a Somali restaurant on the northeast side of Columbus, home to second-largest Somali population in the United States. The smell of spices is just as robust as the loud conversation, and the East African restaurant is crowded after afternoon prayers at the nearby mosque.

The hubbub grows when a familiar face swaggers in — Ismail Mohamed, a young Somali lawyer and candidate for the Ohio Legislature. Elders and youth alike clamor to say hello. The excitement that someone from their community could represent them in the legislature is palpable.

“It’s humbling to, you know, to be in this position, but it puts a lot of pressure on you to where folks have really high expectations,” he said.

The 30-year-old Democrat is one of a small but growing number of immigrants who fled civil war and famine in Somalia, ready to add their voices to the political process in the places they now call home.

Across the country, 11 Somali Americans are running for legislative seats in Maine, Minnesota, Ohio and Washington state. Somali Americans have also been elected to city councils, school boards and, in Minnesota, legislative seats and Congress.

The growing political clout corresponds with growing numbers. There was an influx of Somalians arriving in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and their numbers now top 300,000.

“We’re just getting started. I hope there are more to come,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

They are part of an age-old trend of new immigrants testing the waters of the political process once they have settled in the United States. Many Somali American candidates say they want to lend their voices, ensure their communities have a seat at the table, and offer up solutions to the problems plaguing their communities.

“Our driving force is to see betterment for everybody that lives here. Running for office is our way of showing we’re here and we’re willing to contribute,” said Mana Abdi, who is expected to win her race and make history as the first Somali American in the Maine legislature.

Abdi wears a headscarf because of her Muslim faith, like most people from Somalia, while knocking on doors and visiting with residents outside assisted living community on a recent afternoon.

The 26-year-old Democrat came to America as a child, graduated from the University of Maine at Farmington and works at Bates College, and is unopposed because her Republican opponent dropped out after sharing a social media post saying that Muslims shouldn’t hold office.

She could be joined by another Somali American, South Portland Mayor Deqa Dhalac, who’s running for another legislative district in Maine.

Dhalac, a 54-year-old social worker and a Democrat, said part of the reason she was inspired to run was Republican former President Donald Trump, who made a vulgar comment about immigrants from Haiti and Africa and banned travel from several Muslim countries, including Somalia.

“If we do not run for office, we cannot blame other people for making policy and legislation and complain about it. You have to be at the table if you want to make good decisions for your community,” she said.

The newcomers share many of the same concerns as those born in the U.S. The candidates are focused on affordable housing, public safety and increased funding for schools — issues that directly impact their communities.

“People do ask ‘are you an American?’ just because your last name is, you know, Mohamed or, you know, Abdi,” Mohamed said, noting that fellow immigrants are proving they’re just as American as others by serving in the armed forces and becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and more.

Like Abdi, 26-year-old Munira Abdullahi is all but guaranteed to be the first Somali woman and first Muslim woman to serve in the Ohio Legislature because she, too, is unopposed. Abdullahi, who is running as a Democrat, was born in a refugee camp after her parents fled Somalia. A couple decades later, she’s youth director for the Muslim American Society and a graduate of Ohio State University.

“I know a lot of young women are looking up to me and seeing themselves in me and they’re realizing, like, they could also do this,” she said. “I really want young women and young women of color, especially, to look at me and say, like, if I really want to do this, I can.”

The immigrants are bringing diverse views and experiences and are contributing to the economy by starting businesses and bringing new energy to communities, said Molly Herman, citizenship and civic engagement manager for the Immigrant Welcome Center in Portland, Maine.

“Getting new individuals, new perspectives, new or different backgrounds, people coming from all types of places, I think is really important, in continuing a successful democracy,” she said.

The inspiration for some of the candidates is U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who grew up in a refugee camp and became the first Somali American member of Congress. She and several other young Democratic women of color were collectively nicknamed “the squad.”

She said she’s eager to see more Somali Americans joining her in Washington.

“Somali Americans are as American as anyone else, and we don’t need an invitation to show up or serve our communities. I am incredibly proud of all the Somali Americans who are entering into public service and can’t wait to see more of us in the halls of Congress,” she said.
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Republican Committee Sues Google Over Email Spam Filters

The Republican National Committee has filed a lawsuit against tech giant Google, alleging the company has been suppressing its email solicitations ahead of November’s midterm elections – an allegation Google denies.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of California Friday evening, accuses Gmail of “discriminating” against the RNC by unfairly sending the group’s emails to users’ spam folders, impacting both fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts in pivotal swing states.

“Enough is enough – we are suing Google for their blatant bias against Republicans,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a statement to The Associated Press. “For 10 months in a row, Google has sent crucial end-of-month Republican GOTV and fundraising emails to spam with zero explanation. We are committed to putting an end to this clear pattern of bias.”

Google, in a statement, denied the charges. “As we have repeatedly said, we simply don’t filter emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions,” said spokesperson Jose Castaneda, adding that the company provides training and guidelines to campaigns and works to “maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

The lawsuit focuses on how Google’s Gmail, the world’s largest email service with about 1.5 billion users, screens solicitations and other material to help prevent users from being inundated by junk mail. To try to filter material that account holders may not want in their inboxes, Google and other major email providers create programs that flag communications likely to be perceived as unwelcome and move them to spam folders that typically are rarely, if ever, perused by recipients.

The suit says Google has “relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building” – particularly at the end of each month, when political groups tend to send more messages. “It doesn’t matter whether the email is about donating, voting, or community outreach. And it doesn’t matter whether the emails are sent to people who requested them,” it reads.

Google contends its algorithms are designated to be neutral, but a study released in March by North Carolina State University found that Gmail was far more likely to block messages from conservative causes. The study, based on emails sent during the U.S. presidential campaign in 2020, estimated Gmail placed roughly 10% of email from “left-wing” candidates into spam folders, while marking 77% from “right-wing” candidates as spam.

Gmail rivals Yahoo and Microsoft’s Outlook were more likely to favor pitches from conservative causes than Gmail, the study found.

The RNC seized upon that study in April to call upon the Federal Election Commission to investigate Google’s “censorship” of its fundraising efforts, which it alleged amounted to an in-kind contribution to Democratic candidates and served as “a financially devastating example of Silicon Valley tech companies unfairly shaping the political playing field to benefit their preferred far-left candidates.”

Since then, the commission has approved a pilot program that creates a way for political committees to get around spam filters, so their fundraising emails find their way into recipients’ primary inboxes. Gmail is participating in the “Verified Sender Program,” which allows senders to bypass traditional spam filters, but also gives users the option of unsubscribing from a sender. If the unsubscribe button is hit, a sender is supposed to remove that Gmail address from their distribution lists.

As of Friday evening, the RNC had not signed up to participate in the pilot program.

Republicans who have tried to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election without parroting the most extreme and baseless claims about corrupted voting machines and stolen votes have often tried to blame big technology companies like Twitter and Facebook that they allege were biased against former President Donald Trump. A long list of state and local election officials, courts and members of Trump’s own administration have said there is no evidence of the mass fraud Trump alleges. 
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After Midterms, Pressure for Biden to Stay Tough on China

With polls suggesting that Republicans may retake control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, the United States appears set to continue its “tough on China” policy. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at how a GOP-led Congress might exert more pressure on the Biden administration on various issues from trade relations with Beijing to support for Taiwan.
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After Midterms, Pressure for Biden to Stay Tough on China

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping did not mention the United States during the CCP’s 20th National Congress this week. But his message was clear: Beijing will double down in the face of Western threats, including those concerning Taiwan.

“We are not committed to abandoning the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” Xi said, slamming the “serious provocations of external forces interfering in Taiwan.”

The U.S. Congress is considering the Taiwan Policy Act, a bill aimed at boosting the military capability of the self-governed island, which Beijing considers a breakaway province, against a potential Chinese invasion.

Xi’s address and the CCP congress’ report contained stark warnings that China is facing growing external threats and entering a period “in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent.”

As the CCP congress cements a more assertive foreign policy under Xi, who will remain in power for an extraordinary third term, the country is on a collision course with a Biden administration that would be pressed to be even tougher on China should Republicans win more congressional seats in the November midterm elections.

“For 50 years, the Chinese Communist Party has launched an assault on the American way of life, on our economy, on our jobs, on our companies, on our culture, on our institutions, on our very future,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters in September.

If Republicans win a majority of seats in the House, McCarthy will likely become the speaker.

Representative Michael McCaul, who leads the House Foreign  Affairs Committee China Task Force, has vowed that if Republicans retake control, they will prepare the U.S. to win its great power competition against China through tougher legislation, including on export controls.

“My priority will be to stop exporting these technologies and selling these technologies to China so they can build their own war machine that will then in turn be pointed at us,” he said at the same press conference.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced aggressive measures limiting exports of advanced U.S. semiconductor technology to China, saying that the technology is supporting Beijing’s military modernization.

Beyond Taiwan

Beyond Taiwan, various Republican lawmakers have promised more focus on China — and a tougher U.S. stance on issues from securing supply chains to investigating the origins of the coronavirus — to make their point that President Joe Biden is soft on Beijing.

But even if Democrats retain their slim majority in Congress, Biden’s China policy will likely remain hawkish, keeping in place many of the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, including steep tariffs on Chinese goods and containing Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.

“Under the Trump administration, the Chinese genuinely hoped that the Democrats would win. But after almost two years of the Biden administration, I think the Chinese have come to the realization that both are not going to change the consensus on China,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

“And some in China would even argue that Biden’s policy is even more difficult for China because of how Biden aligns his position and mobilizes allies and partners to jointly counter China’s growing influence,” Yun told VOA.

Should Republicans retake Congress, Yun said, there will be more skepticism of Biden’s compartmentalized approach of competing strategically with China while cooperating on transnational challenges such as climate change and pandemic prevention.

The approach is problematic, she said, because Beijing views its relationship with Washington as transactional; to secure China’s cooperation, the U.S. must concede on issues it sees as competitive because for Beijing, “everything is linked to everything else.”

From Beijing’s point of view, whatever happens in U.S. politics in the foreseeable future, there are no good outcomes, she said.

“Regardless of who wins in this midterm election, or regardless of who wins in the next presidential election in 2024, this China policy is here to stay.”
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Court Temporarily Blocks Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness

A federal appeals court late Friday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans. 

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay while it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the loan cancellation program. The stay ordered the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal. 

The order came just days after people began applying for loan forgiveness. 

It’s unclear what the decision means for the 22 million borrowers who have applied for relief. The Biden administration had promised not to clear any debt before Sunday as it battled the legal challenges, but the soonest it was expected to begin erasing debt was mid-November. 

The crucial question now is whether the issue will be resolved before January 1, when payments on federal student loans are expected to restart after being paused during the pandemic. Millions of Americans were expected to have their debt canceled entirely under Biden’s plan, but they now face uncertainty about whether they will need to start making payments in January. 

Biden has said his previous extension of the payment pause would be the final one, but economists worry that many Americans may not have regained financial footing after the upheaval of the pandemic. If borrowers who were expecting debt cancellation are asked to make payments in January, there’s fear that many could fall behind on the bills and default on their loans. 

A notice of appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was filed late Thursday, hours after U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis ruled that because the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina failed to establish standing, “the court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.” 

Separately, the six states also asked the district court for an injunction prohibiting the administration from implementing the debt cancellation plan until the appeals process plays out. 

Speaking at Delaware State University, a historically Black university where the majority of students receive federal Pell Grants, Biden on Friday said nearly 22 million people have applied for the loan relief in the week since his administration made its online application available. 

The plan, announced in August, would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 yearly or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven. 

The Congressional Budget Office has said the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades.  

James Campbell, an attorney for the Nebraska attorney general’s office, told Autrey at an October 12 hearing that the administration was acting outside its authority in a way that would cost states millions of dollars. 

The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were disbursed before July 1. The plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could see their debt erased entirely, according to the administration. 

The announcement immediately became a major political issue ahead of the November midterm elections. 

Conservative attorneys, Republican lawmakers and business-oriented groups have asserted that Biden overstepped his authority in taking such sweeping action without the assent of Congress. They called it an unfair government giveaway for relatively affluent people at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t pursue higher education. 

Many Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection contests have distanced themselves from the plan. 

Biden on Friday blasted Republicans who have criticized his relief program, saying “their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.” He noted that some Republican officials had debt and pandemic relief loans forgiven. 

Other lawsuits also have sought to stop the program. Earlier Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group seeking to stop the debt cancellation program. 

Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from Wisconsin and neighboring states, did not comment in turning away the appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association. The group wrote in its Supreme Court filing that it needed an emergency order because the administration could begin canceling outstanding student debt as soon as Sunday.
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