President Biden is breaking promises he made on the campaign trail to follow in Trump’s footsteps and keep the U.S. refugee cap at an all time low. It’s abhorrent. Earlier this year, Biden pledged to raise the refugee cap for the next fiscal year to 125,000. Yet not even 100 days in office and his administration is backpedaling from that goal at a breathtaking pace — keeping the cap at 15,000 for the time being — and slamming the door shut on thousands of people who urgently need our help. If President Biden does not raise this cap immediately, the current pace of admissions will mean just 4,510 refugees will be resettled this year — far below the current limit and the lowest of any president ever. The U.S. has an obligation to open its doors to refugees. In fact, it’s a failed violence-first U.S. foreign policy that has driven displacement around the globe — exacerbating violence, systemic inequality, and the effects of the climate crisis — for decades. Congress must save the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Add your name to tell Congress to act immediately and stop Biden from further dismantling the U.S. refugee program.

President Biden is breaking promises he made on the campaign trail to follow in Trump’s footsteps and keep the U.S. refugee cap at an all time low. It’s abhorrent. Earlier this year, Biden pledged to raise the refugee cap for the next fiscal year to 125,000. Yet not even 100 days in office and his administration is backpedaling from that goal at a breathtaking pace — keeping the cap at 15,000 for the time being — and slamming the door shut on thousands of people who urgently need our help. If President Biden does not raise this cap immediately, the current pace of admissions will mean just 4,510 refugees will be resettled this year — far below the current limit and the lowest of any president ever. The U.S. has an obligation to open its doors to refugees. In fact, it’s a failed violence-first U.S. foreign policy that has driven displacement around the globe — exacerbating violence, systemic inequality, and the effects of the climate crisis — for decades. We have to get loud NOW. Add your name to let President Biden know your disgust with his decision to keep refugee admissions at an all time low and urge him to increase the cap as quickly as possible.

The US-backed Saudi-led coalition has been killing Yemenis for since its “intervention” 6 years ago. Recently, and out of desperation, the US-backed coalition escalated its tactics, implementing blockade on fuel entering the country. This effectively dismantles the supply chain in Yemen, leaving millions without food and medicine. It leaves hospitals and homes without power as fuel is required to power generators. This blockade is starving millions of Yemenis and the UN estimates 400,000 Yemeni children could die from starvation if the blockade is not lifted. Now a child dies every 75 seconds. Yemenis have been deprived of their basic human rights of water, food, electricity, and life at the hands of the US-funded onslaught. This is a preventable, man-made humanitarian crisis. We will not stand by the deaths of our families and people. President Biden and the United States must publicly condemn the blockade on Yemen & end all US support for the Saudi blockade.

In 2015, President Obama negotiated the Iran Deal -- an agreement that blocked Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons in return for lifting sanctions that had devastated the Iranian economy. The deal provided unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program and created the most instructive nuclear inspections that any country has ever voluntarily accepted. The Iran deal was the result of years of painstaking negotiations and is one of the strongest and most significant nuclear nonproliferation arrangements in history. With this deal, we peacefully eliminated the threat of a nuclear armed Iran and strengthened our own national security. Without it, we face yet another avoidable disastrous conflict in the Middle East. In 2018, Trump reneged on the Iran deal and imposed sanctions on Iran. With the U.S. out of the deal, Iran has had little incentive to abide by the deal and has reduced its compliance.Trump undermined American credibility for future international agreements, further isolated the U.S. from major allies, and impoverished the Iranian people. Now is the time for the United States to salvage the Iran nuclear deal. President Biden campaigned on the promise of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and we must hold him to that. Returning to the Iran deal is a necessary requirement for effective, broader diplomacy with Iran. The United States, along with people worldwide, deserve a long-term diplomatic approach to Iran and the wider region that minimizes human suffering and fosters lasting peace. The U.S. has yet to reenter the agreement and this historic diplomatic opportunity is at risk of being lost. President Biden must ignore attacks from warhawks and take bold steps to jumpstart diplomacy with Iran. Sign the petition: Demand President Biden to reenter the Iran nuclear deal.

As we continue to grapple with a pandemic, we must not forget our ongoing gun violence epidemic — and we must treat it like the national security priority it is. With so many factors fueling it, we know it’s not going to be solved overnight. BUT Congress could act NOW to mitigate the extent of mass shooting injuries and deaths. One place to start is by finally passing a federal ban on all assault weapons. With your help, we can make sure Congress hears us loud and clear when we say weapons of war do not belong in our streets. Together, we can push Congress to do their job — that means representing AND and protecting us with legislation that will ban assault weapons from our streets.

Despite being elected to move away from Trump policies of the past, despite a clear reckoning on our priorities in the wake of COVID, and despite the fact that budgets are moral documents, President Biden is likely to propose a $740 BILLION budget that would keep Pentagon spending at Trump-era levels. Disappointed doesn’t begin to cut it. We’re furious. A growing chorus in Congress is too. But while Congress, not the White House, is ultimately in control of the purse strings, progressive champions can’t stop this budget on their own. That’s why we need to turn the pressure up even higher, and remind everyone in Congress and the White House: We want our priorities put back in order and that means cutting the Pentagon budget.

Right now, concrete is being dumped into sacred lands of the Okinawan people for the construction of a new U.S. military base. With over 800 military bases around the world already, the construction of another base is not only harming the Okinawan people but ramping up the threat of war. 2021 has to be the year we finally close the new base in Okinawa and begin a pathway towards peace in the Pacific — and we do that by closing down our foreign military bases and building up diplomacy. We’re in a unique, but narrow opportunity with President Biden in office to raise the alarms on this, and other, disastrous bases. That means we’ve got to jump into action and urge Defense Secretary Austin to stop the construction NOW — and we need your help in getting LOUD.

The media and many irresponsible politicians are completely failing to meet this moment in history by focusing on a symptom of a global economic and health crisis -- families and unaccompanied minors at the U.S./Mexico border -- rather than its root causes. Recently asked by President Biden to lead "the administration’s efforts to deter migration to the southwestern border by working to improve conditions in Central America," Vice President Kamala Harris can help turn things around by -- among other things -- prioritizing COVID-19 vaccine access for Central America and other countries immigrants are currently fleeing from in this time of a global health and economic crisis. No matter how many oversimplified anecdotes journalists collect, or public officials that say it, pretending that people risk their lives and leave everything they know just because a President in a different country is a "nice guy" has to be one of the most ridiculous stories our pandemic has produced yet. To suggest that either talking tough, more enforcement, or the further criminalization of immigrants is a solution to this crisis is not just irresponsible (we now have decades of data that prove the opposite) -- it is also dangerous. This is dangerous not just for immigrants and their countries of origin, who bear the brunt of this harmful thinking, but really for all of us in the U.S. and around the world when our best shot at a better future right now is directing every spare resource we have towards stamping out COVID-19. With VP Kamala Harris leading these latest efforts, she has a real opportunity to help send this message, to save lives, and to economically assist Central America and the world by prioritizing vaccine access for all. If enough of us sign-on and share this, we'll help give her the support she needs to do so. With dueling health, economic, and climate crises -- vaccine access isn't the only thing Central America and immigrants need right now -- but it could be the beginning of the spark needed to start moving towards a world where people migrate out of want, and not out of need. That's our only chance at ever stopping the negative effects associated with immigration. Until then, we need to take this moment in history as another reminder that we can't wall off our problems. Viruses know no borders. We either liberate ourselves together or not at all. Any journalist or public official that thinks otherwise is failing all of us.

President Biden is being applauded by Jared Kushner — the very person who was catastrophic to U.S. foreign policy. When Kushner followed his father-in-law into the White House, we had successful, working nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China. But they decided it would be better to walk away from that successful deal to make childish threats, launch new military misadventures, and put us right back on the path to war with Iran. President Biden should listen to US — not Jared Kushner! During the Trump years, we repeatedly came close to all out war with Iran. If the United States doesn’t move toward for diplomacy now, we’ll be right back on the brink of war. Jared Kushner supporting Biden’s approach to Iran is a bad sign. Now’s the time to choose peace and diplomacy, and it’s up to us to make it happen. Can you add your name to our note urging President Biden to join the Iran deal and walk away from Trump’s catastrophic policies?

While President Biden has made the right promises, actions speak louder than words. The airstrikes against targets in Syria that he authorized undermine those promises and risk escalating tensions in the Middle East. Last year Congress passed a War Powers Resolution in response to an unconstitutional airstrike and Trump refused to sign it. We need a War Powers Resolution that sends a clear message that only Congress, not the president, can approve military strikes like the one President Biden launched in Syria. We need fewer wars, and less military tension. We need Congress to act.

The Biden Administration has just released a U.S. intelligence report that clearly states that "Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi." (1) But while the U.S. government has placed sanctions on many of the assassins involved, the Biden Administration has not placed sanctions on the man who ordered the assassination -- Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman. (2) Under the U.S. law the Global Magnitsky Act, the U.S. government can place property sanctions and a U.S. travel ban on human rights violators. (3) By not placing sanctions on Saudi Arabia's brutal ruler, the Biden Administration is sending the terrible signal that the U.S. will maintain its relationship with Saudi Arabia's dictatorship instead of standing up for human rights. President Biden should immediately place a travel ban and sanctions on Mohammed bin Salman. It is time for the U.S. to end its alliance with the Saudi monarchy. (1) https://freedomforward.org/2021/02/26/u-s-intelligence-report-on-saudi-monarchys-murder-of-jamal-khashoggi-pdf/ (2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/26/jamal-khashoggi-mohammed-bin-salman-us-report (3) https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/us-global-magnitsky-act

Recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria on alleged Iranian-backed militias are a stark reminder of the choice we face: continue the same failed “maximum pressure” campaign towards Iran with its countless deaths and unrest OR take the proven path of peace by returning to diplomacy. Missile strikes, retaliatory bombings, and the ever-present danger of all out war aren’t inevitable. The good news is, there’s an offramp toward diplomacy available right now. President Biden has to take it by rejoining the Iran deal (the JCPOA if we’re being fancy) — quickly. Rejoining the Iran deal is the ONLY way off Trump’s path to war with Iran. And it’s up to us to show the Biden administration that there is a MASSIVE movement of people who want a world built on peace and justice, not senseless war.