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"The country's most important civil rights law no longer effectively exists, and that's going to have ramifications on American democracy for a very long time." Mother Jones correspondent Ari Berman reacts to the Supreme Court's recent 6-3 decision rejecting key principles of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Since the court issued its ruling last week, Republican-controlled states have begun to redraw their voting maps in a "gerrymandering arms race" that "could lead to the largest drop in Black representation since the Jim Crow era," explains Berman. "We're returning to the days of literacy tests and poll taxes — not through those devices, but through specifically trying to eliminate Black office holders. And Southern legislators are very clear they are going to do this. They feel unshackled by the Supreme Court ruling. They are being pressured by President Trump to do it, and they feel like all the guardrails are off right now."
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won big in state-level elections this week, with the Hindu nationalist BJP now controlling over 70% of the country. Leading opposition politician and Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee has refused to recognize the results as legitimate, accusing the Modi government of mass disenfranchisement. Ahead of elections, 9 million names were deleted from the rolls under a process called "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR). The process, conducted by India's Election Commission, "vitiates and creates an electoral advantage by pitting Hindu voters against Muslim voters," says political scientist Gilles Verniers. Rather than the advertised purge of deceased and duplicate voters, SIR appears to have primarily affected Muslims and other minorities. Nearly 3 million voters in West Bengal, where more than a quarter of the population is Muslim, were unable to cast their vote.
From New Delhi, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani says blatant election interference has destroyed Indians' faith in democratic elections. "The general public does not think the elections are free and fair in India," she explains. "So this is a sad day for democracy, for people who believe that not only today, but tomorrow's India should also be democratic."
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 WASHINGTON - On Thursday, August 12, 2021, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas traveled to McAllen and Brownsville, Texas.
Secretary Mayorkas received operational briefings on frontline operations at Border Patrol processing facilities, and heard directly from Border Patrol leadership in the Rio Grande Valley and surrounding sectors. Secretary Mayorkas also met with Border Patrol Agents and thanked them for their unwavering dedication to the mission despite the many challenges they face.
Secretary Mayorkas also met with border sheriffs, local and federal leaders, and NGOs. During the meetings, Secretary Mayorkas thanked them for their partnership, reiterated that the situation at the border is a priority for the Department - especially with the added challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic - and laid out how the Department is executing its plan to address the border situation.
Speaking at the Fort Brown Border Patrol Station in Brownsville, Secretary Mayorkas outlined actions the Department of Homeland Security has taken in the past six months and the steps the Biden-Harris Administration continues to take to implement a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system.
Keywords: Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Topics: Border Security
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