Politics and views in the United States

Faith leaders decry ICE violence, postal workers defend mail-in voting and Black leaders gather in Nashville to dissect the erosion of the Voting Rights Act.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

This isn't a peacekeeping initiative.

This is a terror campaign with the mission of traumatizing our neighbors until they self-deport.

We don't need terror.

We need peace.

Reverend Dan de Leon with the United Church of Christ in College Station, Texas, is one of a growing chorus of faith leaders condemning the administration's often violent immigration enforcement.

With the way cleared by the Supreme Court, the White House has now ended temporary protected status for 350,000 Haitian and Syrian migrants.

ICE says it will ramp up raids, although employers in cities like Springfield, Ohio, say they can't replace the workers.

The U.S. military is pausing strikes on Iran after two straight weeks of constant bombing.

U.N. Ambassador Mike Walsh says President Donald Trump is giving talks, quote, some space.

Tehran says it will also pause attacks.

In a move some military families say they find deeply offensive, the Pentagon has taken the names of four fallen soldiers off its Iran death toll.

The Defense department argues the dead fall into a different category because they were killed during a brief ceasefire.

Officials have also stopped providing reporters with casualty updates, but the department's data system now says more than 600 have been injured.

A federal court says the White House can't direct the Postal Service to withhold mail ballots from states that refuse to turn over unredacted voter rolls.

Michigan Air Force veteran Steve Wood is one of many postal workers defending mail-in ballots, saying he relied on them when overseas.

One thing I always knew when I dropped my ballot in the ballot box in whatever country I might have been in, that it was going to get to where it needed to go and my vote was going to be counted.

The president's signature voting bill, the Save America Act, would sharply restrict mail-in ballots and require documentary proof of citizenship to vote.

It has repeatedly stalled in the Senate, where Majority Leader Senator John Thune says it lacks the votes.

The National Urban League's annual conference in Nashville this week will focus on the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

President Mark H. Morial says they chose Tennessee because its legislature just passed some of the country's most restrictive voting laws and intentionally broke up the state's only majority black congressional district.

The attack on black political empowerment could cost us literally hundreds of black legislative seats over the next few years, in addition to the congressional seats that have already been taken away.

And a spokesperson for Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell says he continues to meet with staff on Senate business.

He's been absent from work for more than six weeks.

I'm Catherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.