Washington lawyer advises immigrants to prepare for life without DACA
Seattle-based attorney Luis Cortes – himself a DACA recipient – says under a second Trump presidency, it is likely the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program will end.
Cortes is working on community organizing across the state of Washington to ensure DACA recipients and other undocumented immigrants know where they can get resources and support.
“We're lucky in Washington that we have a lot of privileges already, like driver's licenses are not contingent on DACA. Professional licenses are not contingent on DACA,” Cortes said. “But we want to also make sure that we have pipelines to career paths […] and also how we can get institutions on board to continue to support dreamers without DACA.”
Cortes fought for the DACA program at the Supreme Court in 2019, two years after the Trump Administration attempted to repeal the program. It was reinstated by President Biden in 2021, and is currently the subject of another lawsuit testing whether the program in its current form can still exist.
Earth scientists eager to study Lake Roosevelt landslide
State and federal geologists are preparing to study a landslide that plunged into Lake Roosevelt south of Kettle Falls.
The slide last Sunday happened along the western bank of Lake Roosevelt, right across from Colville Flats Beach in Stevens County. The wave it generated reportedly washed over Washington Route 25, damaged riverside docks and pushed debris into the lake.
The bluffs that line that part of the reservoir aren’t made of bedrock. They’re loose silt and clay left over from the last ice age. And from time to time, portions of the bluffs simply give way, collapsing into the lake.
Dr. Alex Steely, a geohazards specialist with the Washington Geological Survey, said he didn’t know what caused Sunday’s landslide, but the events are fairly common along the silt-and-clay layers that border the reservoir.
“Going back to when they first raised the lake level in Lake Roosevelt, people started noticing landslides,” Steely told SPR News. “And speaking in a general sense, that could be true because now there's this permanent body of water that's wetting a lot of those sediments. And [the moisture] could actually make them weaker.”
He said a slide of this size offers a great chance to study landslides and the waves they generate.
“This is kind of an amazing scientific opportunity, to be able to go and look at those results right after an event happened to better understand the process and how we can model it,” Steely said.
Steely said what geologists learn could help them develop models for tsunamis and their lakebound equivalents, called seiches. The Washington Geological Survey is working with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation and National Park Service to coordinate the field study.
Washington greenhouse gas information comes two years late
Federal officials say Washington state’s climate-harming pollution has been increasing since the Covid-19 pandemic.
But state officials have yet to release post-pandemic data on Washington's climate impacts.
Washington officials plan to publish the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for 2020 and 2021 next month.
Andrew Wineke with the Department of Ecology said the state will be less tardy in the future.
“It is a significant lag," he told KUOW public radio. "Everybody wants it to happen faster, and we are putting a team together to do that.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published emissions data for all 50 states for the year 2022.
Federal data show transportation is still Washington’s biggest pollution source, at least as of two years ago.
Idaho state ed board to consider anti-DEI resolution
At midday today, the Idaho State Board of Education will consider a resolution that would close down diversity, equity and inclusion offices at the state’s four-year universities and ban them going forward.
The proposed resolution carves out an exception for diversity and inclusion practices required for federal compliance, educational accreditation and scholarships.
According to the meeting agenda, the board will not vote on the resolution today. They will review its language.
If approved, the resolution would put Idaho in line with at least four other Republican-controlled states that have banned or restricted DEI programs, offices and training in higher education.
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Reporting was contributed by Monica Carrillo-Casas, Brandon Hollingsworth and John Ryan.