IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
An oil production operation is shown in North Dakota. With the U.S. Supreme Court granting more presidential powers to the executive branch, environmental groups warned key agencies will have a harder time going after polluters.
(Adobe Stock)
Presidential powers: Corporate abuses big concern after SCOTUS move
Jul 13, 2026
A U.S. Supreme Court opinion issued last month expands presidential power over independent federal agencies, prompting warnings from environmental advocates about potential implications for states such as North Dakota.
The court’s conservative majority said President Donald Trump had the authority to fire a former Federal Trade Commission member without cause. Legal observers countered the opinion nullifies longstanding precedent involving the role of Congress in insulating certain federal agency officials from direct presidential control.
Doug Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy for the League of Conservation Voters, said he worries the decision weakens checks and balances and shifts more power to corporations.
“So many agencies across the government are created by Congress for the purpose of reining in big business and ensuring that it’s accountable to the law and accountable when it does things to the people that it shouldn’t be able to do,” Lindner explained.
Lindner worries the ruling could increase political pressure within the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He added in North Dakota, where fossil fuel infrastructure has a large presence, polluters could be held less accountable.
Supporters of the decision said it aligns with the view the president needs control over the executive branch. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The President must have the assistance of officers he can trust.”
Lindner argued no matter which party controls the White House, giving a president so much control is dangerous for democracy.
“The president is not supposed to have all the power — Congress is supposed to have the most power, and the president takes an oath to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed,” he emphasized.
In addition to environmental concerns, opponents of the decision warned it could lead to fewer consumer protections and more dangerous workplaces.
The court made one exception in its action on the issue. For now, it blocked the firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook while she challenges the president’s move.
Presidential powers: Corporate abuses big concern after SCOTUS move was first published by Public News Service and was republished with permission.
Mike Moen is a producer with PNS.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
Delaney Hall Detention Facility, Newark, New Jersey.
(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Private Prisons and ICE Exploit Loopholes, Harm Communities
Jul 11, 2026
While Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) terrorizes Black and brown communities with racial profiling, kidnappings, inhumane treatment, fatal abuse, and killings, private prison investors are asking how ICE can detain more people to increase their profits. Private prison corporations have long profited from immigration enforcement, but they are expecting a financial windfall under the current administration. These corporations are politically and financially situated to rapidly increase detention capacity and cash in on the president’s goal of deporting one million people per year. Stopping these corporations from lining politicians’ campaign coffers is a necessary first step in ensuring that our government is accountable to the people it serves, rather than the corporations it contracts with.
ICE and private prison corporations have long had a symbiotic relationship. Ninety percent of ICE's detainees were already being held in facilities owned or operated by private prison corporations before President Trump began his second term. CoreCivic and GEO Group, two of the largest private prison corporations that lead the multi-billion dollar industry, have been contracting with immigration enforcement for decades. By 2023, ICE contracts accounted for 43 percent of CoreCivic’s revenue and 30 percent of GEO Group’s revenue. The majority of each corporation’s lobbyists have held government positions, and GEO Group’s board of directors “has extensive links with ICE.” The relationship between private prisons and ICE is the embodiment of the “'revolving door’ between the federal government and the private sector.”
These private prison corporations have donated millions to the current administration to advance their own interests. CoreCivic and GEO Group spent $1.77 million and $1.38 million, respectively, lobbying the federal government in 2024. These corporations and the people that run them spent millions more in contributions to candidates and PACs that same year. While corporations that contract with the federal government are technically barred from making such direct political contributions, legal loopholes permit CoreCivic and GEO Group’s “PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate family members” to make such political contributions.
It should come as no surprise, then, that since Trump's second term began, CoreCivic and GEO Group have secured additional lucrative government contracts with ICE, enjoyed soaring profits, and seen their stocks rise. These companies are directly profiting from the administration’s racist immigration agenda and its dismantling of due process. Reporters last year found that CoreCivic made $116.5 million in profits in 2025, “an almost 70 percent increase from the previous year.” The company expects higher profits in 2026 to the tune of $147.5 million to $157.5 million.
This projected growth aligns with CoreCivic and GEO Group’s successful lobbying in connection with H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, to increase Congress’s appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “Much of [the] focus” of CoreCivic and GEO Group’s 2024 lobbying was on DHS appropriations. When Congress passed H.R. 1 in 2025, adding $75 billion over four years to ICE’s base $10 billion budget, ICE became the highest-funded law enforcement agency in America.
Nearly two-thirds of the H.R. 1 budget allocated to ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is dedicated to building detention facilities capable of detaining more than 100,000 people per year, while the remaining third is intended to increase ICE’s capacity through hiring and training new officers. This is just one slice of the more than $170 billion that H.R. 1 allocated for immigration enforcement.
In a similar vein, in June of 2026, Congress passed legislation to pump nearly $70 billion more into ICE and CBP’s already inflated budget over the next three years. Almost 90 percent of that additional funding is intended to increase ICE and CBP’s detention efforts and capacity, and fund improvements to their technological capabilities.
ICE’s enormous budget is expected to benefit CoreCivic and GEO Group by allowing them to reopen their idle facilities and construct new ones in record time. The American Immigration Council estimates that with the funding from H.R.1, “ICE could potentially acquire enough detention beds to house 135,000 people at any given time, more than three times the entire capacity of the system at the time President Trump took office.” This expansion has grave implications for noncitizens and citizens alike, as more and more people are subject to ICE detention and inhumane conditions in these facilities.
The stakes of ICE's expansion are, unsurprisingly, highest for Black and brown people. While the government does not publish race and ethnicity data concerning the people it detains, ICE has made no secret of its blatant racial profiling. In one particularly egregious example, in DHS’s 2025 national media campaign, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was depicted on camera saying, “if you are here illegally, you’re next,” while mugshot-style photos of Black and brown men were shown in the background. DHS’ Operation Metro Surge, which terrorized communities in Minnesota beginning in December 2025, targeted Somali and Latino residents. This dovetails with the United States’ history of disproportionately policing and incarcerating Black and brown people. The big money supporting the expansion of ICE treats the capture and abuse of Black and brown people as a business demanding more infrastructure, systems, and technology.
Private prisons are not the only type of corporate interest that profits from ICE terrorizing Black and brown people. The government also has lucrative contracts with hundreds of companies that provide everything from “surveillance tech and airline transportation to cloud services and bank financing.” ICE’s top ten contractors have benefited the most, as ICE concentrated nearly 70 percent of its spending on those contractors in the first full year of this administration. The best-known of these contractors is perhaps Palantir, a tech surveillance company that spent $5.9 million on lobbying expenses in 2024. And while top Palantir executives’ ideological views align with the current administration’s white supremacist rhetoric, and that ideology no doubt informs their business, Palantir’s sheer financial benefits are undeniable. In April of 2025, DHS signed a $30 million contract with Palantir to develop more comprehensive migrant tracking systems, and in February of 2026, Palantir secured a $1 billion software purchase agreement with DHS.
These corporations have a vested interest in ICE’s expansion and in its violent detention practices – that interest is in direct conflict with the will of voters. Polling shows that ICE’s unpopularity has increased. A “sizeable majority” (over 60 percent) of voters believe that ICE has “gone too far” and is “making Americans less safe.” Big money in politics has drowned out public opinion thus far, however. The political influence of private prison corporations and other corporate interests has led to a “Deportation-Industrial Complex,” which the Brennan Center for Justice describes as “an enforcement machine with financial and political constituencies that will outlast this administration.” The financial and political power of this enforcement machine far exceeds that of everyday voters. For example, when H.R. 1 increased ICE’s budget sevenfold, it bypassed the normal discretionary appropriations process, which typically funds defense and immigration. ICE has access to its new, incredibly large budget, whether or not Congress passes its annual budget. As a result, ICE continued to operate while the government was partially shut down in early 2026, even though the shutdown was intended to put pressure on lawmakers to overhaul ICE’s practices after the agency killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
As long as private prisons and similar corporate interests profit from ICE’s harm to Black and brown people, and as long as they can use legal loopholes to make unchecked political contributions to support ICE’s terror, the government will prioritize their interests. In the meantime, ICE continues to racially profile, harm people with impunity, and keep detention center conditions deplorable. The administration also continues to ensure that there is a large pool of people for ICE to target, pausing processing of green card applications and keeping pathways to citizenship scarce.
A thriving democracy cannot allow these monied interests to dictate immigration policy and prioritize profits over people. A critical step in reducing the outsized political power of private prisons is for Congress to enact legislation that closes legal loopholes and strictly limits political donations from government contractors’ direct associates, such as PACs, corporate executives, and major shareholders. Banning these contributions would go a long way toward severing the financial ties that currently allow corporate interests to co-opt our democracy and influence immigration policy. Other campaign finance reforms, such as stricter disclosure requirements and conflicts-of-interest laws, are also necessary to rein in the inordinate role of money in politics. Such measures will help reduce pay-to-play incentives that currently enable private prison corporations and ICE to turn a hefty profit by terrorizing Black and brown people and harming our communities.
Joshua Harmon is a Research and Data Analytics Senior Associate at Dēmos, a non-profit public policy organization working to build a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy and economy.
Neda Khoshkhoo is Interim Director of Democracy at Dēmos, where she focuses on crafting policy solutions for democratic reform, racial justice, and immigrant justice.
Keep ReadingShow less
Congress should strengthen the administrative state by writing clearer laws, limiting delegated authority, and requiring periodic reauthorization of agency powers.
Photo courtesy of Luka Jacobi-Krohn
Putting the Guardrails Back on Delegations of Power
Jul 06, 2026
Congress needs to write better laws instead of dismantling the administrative state.
Debates over the administrative state focus on whether these agencies have accrued too much power. Some argue that the solution is to severely weaken or, in extreme scenarios, dismantle these federal agencies. However, the issue is not the existence of these agencies but actually how Congress writes its laws. When statutes are drafted with vague language, agencies are left to interpret the scope, and courts are forced to set the boundaries. This results in constant litigation and generally regulatory instability. If Congress actually wants a more durable and accountable regulatory system, they need to start with themselves by writing clearer laws.
Over the past century, Congress has tasked federal agencies with implementing often broad legislation to create federal rules allowing them to fill in the details. This resulted from a practical need; elected officials cannot realistically draft every single law, for instance environmental protection laws, or laws safekeeping public health.
However, in recent years, this line has become increasingly blurred, and the process has turned into more of an abdication of power instead of the proper delegation that it started with. Too often, Congress passes laws that are upheld by courts under the “intelligible principle” established in J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States (1928), which allows Congress to provide guiding principles for agencies to implement statutory mandates, but Congress has been using extremely broad language such as “in the public interest” or “as necessary and appropriate.” These do not clearly define the outer limits of the authority Congress is delegating. This has led to several issues, the first of which is that agencies have faced increasing litigation as courts scrutinize their actions under doctrines like the major questions doctrine, leaving agencies exposed to political blame for choices they made from unclear statutory drafting.
The solution is that Congress must put guardrails on its delegations of power. Congress should adopt a rule/law that includes two elements: a plain language statement that defines the boundaries and outer limits of the power being granted to an agency, and an automatic ten-year expiration unless Congress reauthorizes the delegation of power.
The plain language requirement would still allow for the expertise of agencies to fill in the details regarding regulations/rules, but Congress would be required to specify the scope and limit of the discretion it is transferring to the agencies. The plain language added to a bill should include essential pieces such as constraints, boundaries, or decisions the agency may make. Congress has already signaled its support for more clear government communications by passing the Plain Writing Act of 2010, which requires federal agencies use more ordinary everyday language to help everyday Americans understand the agency's public communications. Congress should hold itself to the same standard when they transfer policymaking authority.
The ten-year sunset provision forces Congress to reauthorize its delegations of power. One issue today is that authority delegated by Congress, whether to the executive or federal agencies, can be indefinite. This means that some agencies are still using authority from laws that were passed decades ago. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 for instance, is the main source of authority for the FDA. This law was written a long time before many of the changes that have defined the 21st century like AI-powered medical devices yet the FDA is forced to interpret and apply that nearly century-old language to regulate them. A sunset provision would fix this by requiring Congress to periodically assess whether the delegation of power to an agency remains appropriate or needs to be modified. It doesn't mean agencies would cease all operations if it isn't passed or renewed, just that a certain authority delegated by Congress for a specific function may cease.
These reforms would make it more difficult for courts to strike down regulations/rules made by agencies such as environmental protection or health rules because Congress wasn't clear where its delegation of authority ends or starts. When Congress defines the boundaries of its delegation in clear, simple, plain language, agencies will be less at risk of facing litigation regarding their rules.
Congress can strengthen, not dismantle the administrative state by reclaiming its constitutionally given authority to write the laws and define the scope of the authority it delegates. By putting guardrails back on its delegations of power, Congress will make the federal government more accountable, more transparent, and most importantly, more durable.
Luka Jacobi-Krohn is a political science student at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent the last semester as a domestic intern at Penn Washington, where he studied and wrote about federal agencies, Congress, policymaking, and their intersections.
Keep ReadingShow less
America's immigration debate reflects a deeper question: Does America still believe in itself? A historical look at immigration, assimilation, and American identity.
Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images
What Immigration Debates Reveal About National Confidence
Jul 06, 2026
America has spent 250 years arguing about immigrants.
But beneath the arguments about visas, walls, asylum claims, deportations, and border security lies a more uncomfortable question:
How confident are Americans in America?
Because nations that believe in themselves rarely fear newcomers.
Nations that doubt themselves almost always do.
At its deepest level, the immigration debate is not really about borders. It is about confidence.
History offers a revealing pattern.
The greatest civilizations were rarely built by people who believed their culture was too fragile to absorb outsiders. They succeeded because they were confident enough to attract, incorporate, and transform newcomers into stakeholders in a larger national project.
Consider Rome.
Rome did not become the dominant power of the ancient world simply because it had disciplined legions and impressive engineering. Rome possessed something even more powerful: a remarkable ability to turn outsiders into Romans.
Unlike many ancient societies that tightly guarded membership, Rome gradually extended rights, opportunities, military service, and eventually citizenship to conquered peoples and foreigners throughout the empire.
Rome understood a fundamental truth: a civilization becomes stronger when talented outsiders want to join it.
Its genius was not merely conquest. It was assimilation.
Centuries later, Britain experienced a similar dynamic.
Following World War II, Britain faced labor shortages and economic challenges. Newcomers from the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa, and elsewhere arrived to help rebuild the country. They staffed hospitals, drove buses, opened businesses, served in government, and contributed to every aspect of British society.
The transition was not always smooth. There were tensions, fears, and political battles. Yet over time, many descendants of those once viewed as outsiders became physicians, judges, entrepreneurs, military officers, members of Parliament, and even prime ministers.
The lesson is not that immigration is easy.
The lesson is that nations frequently mistake the discomfort of change for evidence of decline.
America should understand this better than any country on Earth.
For more than two centuries, Americans have repeatedly underestimated immigrants.
The Irish were considered too Catholic and too poor. The Italians were supposedly too foreign and too unwilling to assimilate. Jews, Chinese immigrants, Eastern Europeans, Greeks, and countless others were all accused of being fundamentally incompatible with American life.
The objections changed little. Only the nationality changed.
Then something predictable happened. The immigrants settled. Their children thrived. Their grandchildren became Americans in every meaningful sense of the word.
They became mayors, governors, military officers, teachers, scientists, business leaders, judges, and members of Congress. Then the country forgot the original predictions.
History has repeated this cycle so often that it is difficult to understand why anyone still believes the latest version.
That does not mean borders do not matter.
They do.
A serious nation must know who enters, enforce its laws, remove genuine threats, and maintain public confidence in the immigration system.
Border security is important.
But it is possible to support secure borders while also recognizing that immigration itself is not a sign of national weakness.
In fact, the opposite may be true.
The countries that attract ambitious people from around the world are often the countries others most want to join.
Millions of people do not uproot their lives, leave family behind, and take enormous risks to move to nations they believe are failing.
They come because they:
- see opportunity,
- believe in the future, and
- think the destination country offers something worth pursuing.
The paradox is that immigration restriction is often presented as an expression of patriotism. Yet many arguments against immigration rest on a surprisingly pessimistic view of America.
They assume American culture is too weak to assimilate newcomers. They assume American institutions are too fragile to withstand change. They assume American identity is so delicate that it cannot survive contact with people born somewhere else.
That is not confidence. It is anxiety.
At its best, America has never defined itself primarily by ancestry.
It has defined itself by a set of ideas: liberty, opportunity, constitutional government, individual responsibility, and the belief that people from vastly different backgrounds can become part of a shared national story.
Being American is not automatic. It must be learned. But it can be learned.
That is why generation after generation of immigrants has ultimately become part of the American fabric.
As the United States approaches its 250th birthday, the most important immigration question may not be whether immigrants believe in America. Clearly, millions still do.
The more important question is whether Americans still believe in America. Because confident nations absorb newcomers.
Nations that fear newcomers often reveal something deeper: not uncertainty about immigration, but uncertainty about themselves.
Richard T. Herman is the founder of Herman Legal Group, a nationally recognized immigration law firm that has represented immigrants, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, researchers, physicians, executives, and their families for more than 30 years. He is widely known for helping immigrant founders, startup leaders, and highly skilled professionals navigate complex U.S. immigration pathways while pursuing the American Dream. He is also a co-author of Immigrant, Inc.: Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More