in their voter suppression and gerrymandering tactics and it puts into starker relief the need for the senate and house to act on comprehensive voting rights reform. chuck schumer announced they re going to vote on the freedom to vote act which is a compromised version that joe manchin says he s going to support. the question is, what are democrats, what is the biden administration going to do after that fails? are they going to press joe manchin and kiersten sinema to reconsider their position. i think frustrations are boiling over in the democratic party right now with the biden administration, that they ve been too focussed on the infrastructure bill, not focussed enough quite frankly on this law, this proposed law. you have voices across the democratic party, sherrod brown who is not a provocative,
immigration advocates and the biden white house. last week dozens of advocates walked out of a virtual meeting, protesting biden s decision to maintain or resurrect trump s policies. one saying, quote, i can t stand one more meeting pretending they give us accolades. advocates and lawyers have long warned the policy increases the risk of migrants being raped, kidnapped and killed. then there s act used to deport haitians. these exist because the political will to reform america s immigration system does not. they have tried passing measures through the reconciliation process, but those efforts were
a lot of advocacy groups are suing to lift article 42. and now of course remain in mexico, which the biden administration has said they are only reimplementing because they were forced to do so by courts. but this culminates in a lot of frustration. it s not just advocates versus the administration. there s actually a real divide within the administration. we know of several dhs officials who have recently left who have told me, you know what? this is an administration at war with itself because it can t decide how progressive it wants to be when it comes to the border. one of the things that we re seeing is that the parliamentarian has axed a lot of work that they want, which is a path to citizenship. what is the state of play, given what julia is saying.
going to be almost impossible to peel them back, and then democrats are going to, it s going to be easier for the republicans then to went back the house next year. what advice do you have for the legislators right now in the senate? my advice for the biden administration is brian, they have to treat this like the emergency that it is, like the existential threat to our democracy that it represents. a couple months back there was a report that said for the infrastructure package, that the administration had had 300 separate meetings with folks on the hill. i want to see the 300 meetings for making sure that we pass voting rights legislation and also, you know, other important pieces of investing in our social infrastructure. there needs to be that full-court press. because if not, then the field day, the texas republicans, the
workers. they are encouraged to come forward regardless of their immigration status and enforce their rights. and this week there will be an immigration week of action. we ll be following it closely. julia, one last question for you. one of the lingering impacts of the trump administration is the incarceration, sadly, of children. and we re learning that there s still roughly 11,000 children in detention. what is the biden administration doing to alleviate and remove them from those spaces and bring them into guardianships of some sort? well, first it s important to remember that these children are in the care of hhs. it s not i.c.e., it s not punitive, and it s been hard really, for any administration to imagine a difference in that system where children would go straight from a border processing center to be released at large in the united states. these children who need to have some sort of shelter and be provided for and then have the people who are coming forward to be their s