News Releases

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide. The U.S. government again was the sole veto, killing a third ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council on Tuesday. The International Court of Justice is continuing hearings on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, see videos. This is a separate case from South Africa invoking the Genocide Convention before the Court, which resulted in an Order from the Court which it reiterated on Friday with a reporting mechanism on that case due before the end of the month.

The Arab Group at the UN on Tuesday indicated that they may bring the U.S. government before the General Assembly to defend its veto. Boyle highlights that the General Assembly could do the following under Uniting for Peace: “Suspend Israel from participation in its activities as the General Assembly did to the former criminal apartheid regime in South Africa and to the genocidal Yugoslavia;

“Set up an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel in order to prosecute its highest level civilian and military officials for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide;

“Recommend economic sanctions against Israel to UN Member States;

“Recommend UN Member States sever diplomatic relations with Israel;

“Admit Palestine as a full fledged UN Member State.”

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv@gmail.com, @voiceinwild
Kelly is the board president of World BEYOND War and a co-coordinator of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. The Progressive just published her piece “Israel Is Assaulting Hospitals in Gaza With Full U.S. Support.”

Kelly writes: “Tragically, hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked, invaded, bombed and destroyed. News of additional Israeli attacks is being reported on a daily basis. Last week, ‘Democracy Now!‘ interviewed Dr. Yasser Khan, a Canadian ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who recently returned from a humanitarian surgical mission at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza. Dr. Khan spoke of bombings taking place every few hours resulting in a constant influx of mass casualties. The majority of patients he treated were children from age 2 to 17. He saw horrific eye injuries, shattered faces, shrapnel wounds, abdominal injuries, limbs severed above the bone, and traumas caused by drone launched laser guided missiles. Amid the overcrowding and chaos, health care workers tended to patients while lacking basic equipment, including anesthesia. Patients lay on the ground in unsterile conditions, vulnerable to infection and disease. Most of them also suffered from severe hunger. …

“In 2009, on a smaller, yet still horrific scale, I witnessed an Israeli onslaught in Gaza called ‘Operation Cast Lead.’ In the emergency room of the Al Shifa hospital, Dr. Saeed Abuhassan, an orthopedic surgeon, described experiences similar to Khan’s. This surgeon grew up in Chicago, very close to the neighborhood where I lived. I asked him what he would want me to tell our neighbors back home. He listed a litany of horrors and then he stopped. ‘No,’ he said. ‘First, you must tell them that U.S. taxpayer money paid for all of these weapons.’

“Taxpayer money feeds the bloated, swollen Pentagon budget. U.S. Senators, last week, cowed by AIPAC, decided to send Israel an additional $14.1 billion to boost military spending. Only three Senators voted against the bill.”

On Tuesday the group If Not Now commented: “This morning Biden vetoed a ceasefire in Gaza. Tonight he goes to a fundraiser hosted by AIPAC billionaire Haim Saban, with donors giving up to $250,000 each.”

The conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation has ties with Viktor Orbán’s far-right authoritarian government in Hungary. 

HEIDI BEIRICH; heidi@globalextremism.org, @heidibeirich, @globalextremism 
    Beirich is cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE).

In a recent blog post, GPAHE investigates “widespread interactions between Heritage Foundation officials and Viktor Orbán’s regime,” which show a “deep relationship” between the two. Beirich told the Institute for Public Accuracy that Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts has repeatedly praised and thanked Orbán. 

Beirich also pointed out links between the Heritage Foundation and Hungarian think tanks like the Danube Institute. “They have personnel going between the think tanks… The Danube Institute characterizes itself as a think tank, but it is funded by the Hungarian government, pushes Orbán’s agenda, and justifies the positions of [his] government. It’s not only their relationship with the Heritage Foundation that is of interest.” Last year, a representative from the Institute spoke from the floor of the Tennessee State House “about traditional Judeo-Christian ideas. Their basic position is pushing Christian values and nationalism. They are exporting their ideas into the U.S. wherever they can find a foothold.” 

Orbánism is attractive to Trump and Trumpists writ large because it “reflects the reality that [Trumpists] would like to see. Orbán began attacking migration as early as 2015-2016, and then began attacking LGBTQ rights. He banned LGBTQ studies and women’s studies from universities. He has acolytes in all levels of society. He speaks of himself as a Christian nationalist, and he has suggested that Christian nationalists in the U.S. and Hungary work together. 

“This vision is exactly what Project 2025”––the plan that the Heritage Foundation has put forth to reshape the executive branch of the U.S. federal government if a Republican is elected president in 2024––“lays out. Project 2025 will roll back rights, end quote-unquote wokeism, politicize the bureaucracy, politicize the Department of Justice… Orbánism has achieved what they want to achieve in the U.S.” 

But “Project 2025 hasn’t gotten enough attention. The public needs to know that there’s a plan, and that folks in this movement have said Trump is their instrument to bring this about… Many Americans don’t know who the Heritage Foundation is, or who Orbán is. Unless you’re watching this closely, you wouldn’t connect the dots. But they’re there to be connected.” 

[The International Court of Justice on Monday began hearings on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This will likely result in an advisory opinion on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. See coverage by Al-Jazeera English. This is a separate case from South Africa invoking the Genocide Convention before the Court, which resulted in an Order from the Court which it reiterated on Friday with a reporting mechanism on that case due before the end of the month.]

RICHARD ESKOW, rjeskow@gmail.com, @rjeskow
Eskow is host and managing editor of The Zero Hour and was the lead writer for the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign. He just wrote the piece “10 Reasons House Progressives Must Reject Biden’s Pro-War, Anti-Humanitarian Bill.”

He said today of the Israeli attack on Gaza: “Western governments and media may report or note certain individual attacks here and there — this hospital invaded, these schools and residential blocks destroyed. They may even engage in performative, pro forma criticisms of them from time to time. But they studiously avoid noting the larger pattern at work: a pattern of systematic ethnic cleansing — and do their best to make sure the public doesn’t notice it.

“It’s not subtle, once you look. Israel has spent the last three months driving Palestinians in Gaza southward toward Egypt, destroying homes, schools, and hospitals behind them, and killing them as they go. UNRWA has the largest remaining humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza and had the institutional backing of the United Nations, so destroying it is the logical next step in rendering Gaza uninhabitable.

“How long before tent cities in Sinai … is promoted as the only ‘humane’ situation? Because, while we didn’t see it coming, events have regrettably forced us to — etc. etc. etc.” [See Wall Street Journal piece “Egypt Builds Walled Enclosure on Border as Israeli Offensive Looms.”]

From his recent piece: “1. Yes, it really slashes humanitarian aid.

“Biden said after the bill’s Senate passage that ‘it will provide lifesaving humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, who desperately need food, water, and shelter. They need help.’

“The dishonesty and cynicism are stunning. The bill includes only $9.15 billion for humanitarian aid, to be divided among several parts of the world, and doesn’t commit any specific amount for Gaza. …

“2. The bill doesn’t specify any level of aid to Gaza.

“Like Biden, Sen. Charles Schumer and other Democrats insist the bill must be passed because it contains humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. But it doesn’t commit any specific funds. They might get something; it might get nothing.

“State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel claimed the bill included $1.4 billion for Gaza. ‘This is tangible money,’ he said. No, it isn’t. That figure appears nowhere in the bill’s text. Even the Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led by Sen. Patty Murray, don’t make that claim. …

“3. The Administration has shown that it can’t be trusted.

“White House officials met with Arab Americans on February 8 over the administration’s Gaza policy. The New York Times reports that ‘the officials committed to issuing a letter clarifying the administration’s support of the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.’

“Support? Five days later, at the White House’s urging, the Senate passed the bill terminating UNRWA aid in a predawn vote. (The word ‘predawn’ has long been associated with Israeli airstrikes that kill women and children, but in this case it was a vote.)”

See IPA news release from October: “In ‘Grotesque Hoax’ Biden Admin Not Just ‘Green Lighting’ Israeli Ethnic Cleansing — ‘It’s Bankrolling It.’“

BRANKO MARCETIC, branko.95.m@gmail.com, @BMarchetich
Marcetic is Jacobin staff writer and the author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.

He recently wrote the pieces “Officials Keep Admitting Biden’s Anger at Israel Isn’t Real” and “If You Care About the Hostages, Demand a Cease-Fire,” which states: “Let’s tally up those numbers. Ceasefire: seven days, zero hostages killed, 105 released. War: 129 days, at least four hostages killed, three rescued. …

“Sure enough, some of the loudest voices in Israel itself who are calling for a cease-fire are the very families of those kidnapped Israelis. After all, they’re reading the same news and watching the same footage as the rest of us. They quite logically understand that, since their family members are being held in Gaza, the Israeli government’s indiscriminate bombing and blockade of the territory puts their lives at risk, too. Any of their loved ones could end up like Sharabi or the other hostages killed by the IDF, or like the thousands of Palestinians now starving to death and riddled with infectious disease.”

See IPA news releases, from 2014: “Israeli Hannibal Directive: ‘A Breach of Democracy and Morality’” and from 2023: “Is Israel Killing U.S. Citizens by Refusing a Cease-fire?”

Also see from Jeremy Schahill: “Netanyahu’s War on Truth.”

MAX ELBAUM; ​​maxie@igc.org 
    Elbaum is an author and activist. He writes for Convergence Mag. 

Elbaum told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy are central to the MAGA movement in the current moment. But the MAGA movement is the latest manifestation of a 60-year counteroffensive against the progressive changes that were won in the 1960s. Trump is the product of a long movement. But his individual role has reshaped the direction and some of the priorities and rhetoric of that movement. At times, the media hasn’t captured how dynamic that relationship is––and makes mistakes in emphasizing Trump as an individual, rather than emphasizing the social aspect of it.

“There’s an increasing sense of the need to take Trump seriously, but it’s not at the alarm level that I would suggest is warranted… These aren’t just campaign promises. They have a whole cadre of people ready to come in to enforce” their agenda.  

“The meme that’s out there is that immigrants are invading the U.S. There are different wings of the repressive crackdown. It takes two forms: in the MAGA movement, it is posed as part of the Great Replacement, or the effort to replace white America with people ‘from shithole countries,’ to use Trump’s phrase, and that there is a conspiracy of globalist Jews who are bringing in people of color to change the electorate. But there is [also] a wing of the Democrats that has embraced harsh anti-immigrant measures. They emphasize that there are too many people, that they are breaking the law, that we have to protect our borders, [and] that this is a threat to labor rights and jobs. They don’t tend to use the same kind of hateful rhetoric. But in terms of policy, that wing of the Democrats has caved to the idea that we have to view [immigration] as a security threat and not as something that has to do with the dynamics of global migration due to war, inequality, and climate change.”

Since the last progressive immigration reform in the 1960s, and especially since 1986, immigration policy has been framed in terms of a tradeoff, Elbaum argues. “You trade repressive enforcement mechanisms at the border in exchange for a legalization program, a way for undocumented people to legalize their status. That’s been the back and forth between the Republican and Democratic parties. But that tradeoff is off the table [now]. The Biden administration and the Democrats were willing to trade the repressive mechanisms for the aid bill to Ukraine and Israel. That’s a backward shift.” 

Elbaum added: “The electoral system is rigged against popular will and progressive change. But despite the fact that we have a system that privileges money and the incredible influence of financial wealth in our politics, the majority of people are against this right-wing movement in the form of MAGA. If that majority can be activated, when it understands the agenda that is behind this, and when that is put front and center by public opinion shapers and influencers and the media, then people turn out against MAGA. When the movement is framed as a right-wing effort to take over politics and redistribute to the wealthy, then we have the majority of American people on our side, and can begin a new cycle of progressive change.”

Common Dreams reports: “Days Before Extradition Hearing, Australian Parliament Tells U.S. to Drop Assange Case.” Reuters reports: “Julian Assange’s appeal against US extradition is life or death, Wife Says.”

KEVIN GOSZTOLA, kgosztola@protonmail.com, @kgosztola
Gosztola is author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange and curates The Dissenter.

He has been publishing a series of pieces “Countdown To Day X” ahead of a major appeal hearing before the British High Court of Justice on Feb. 20 and 21, highlighting key aspects of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition to the United States.

The pieces include “CIA Reportedly Plotted To Kill Assange” and “Assange & The ‘Political Offense’ Exception” which states: “The legal team for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange contends that District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser erred by failing to recognize that it was an “abuse of process” for the United States government to seek Assange’s extradition for political offenses. They hope the British High Court of Justice will reconsider this aspect of the case. Individuals accused of treason, sedition, or espionage have historically been protected from extradition because those offenses involve acts directed at a particular government. Such offenses are viewed in international law as ‘pure political offenses’ and not ‘ordinary crimes.'”

Gosztola also just wrote the piece “In Lawsuit Against Spying On Assange Visitors, CIA Will Invoke ‘State Secrets Privilege.'”

The International Court of Justice announced on Tuesday that South Africa has filed an “urgent request for additional measures” in their genocide case against Israel, citing the “unprecedented military offensive against Rafah” and recent statements by Benjamin Netanyahu. See IPA news release from Tuesday.

Decensored News reports: “The request quotes the International Committee of the Red Cross and NGOs operating on the ground such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children, who have warned of a ‘bloodbath;’ that ‘expanded hostilities in Rafah could collapse the humanitarian response‘ and that ‘what happens next’ would ‘be beyond our worst nightmares.'”

See the most recent statement from Norwegian Refugee Council: “Gaza: Israel’s military operation in Rafah would be fatal for displaced civilians and humanitarian aid,” which states: “An expansion of hostilities could turn Rafah into a zone of bloodshed and destruction that people won’t be able to escape,” said Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director. “Conditions in Rafah are already dire, and a full-scale Israeli military operation will lead to even more loss of civilian life. Aid workers have been grappling with insecurity and insufficient aid for months. Attacks in areas where they provide food, water and shelter means this life-saving support will be impeded, if not entirely stopped.”

The group notes: “Rafah, 63 square kilometres in size, is now the most overcrowded governorate in the Gaza Strip with an average density of over 22,200 per square kilometre, five times its pre-conflict levels. Increased access to life saving assistance is crucial for the 1.4 million Palestinians now crammed into the area — or two-thirds of Gaza’s population.

“Any further deterioration in humanitarian conditions in Rafah would be catastrophic as disease and starvation already persist among the displaced population. An NRC assessment of nine shelters hosting 27,400 civilians in Rafah found that people had no drinking water, showers, or personal hygiene items. The shelters operated at 150 per cent capacity as hundreds of displaced people spent the night on the street. Diseases, including hepatitis A, gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, smallpox, lice, influenza, were reported in every location assessed. Expanded hostilities in Rafah could collapse the humanitarian response.

“Military ground operations in and around residential areas in Khan Younis have also intensified, where the latest relocation orders have pushed people to the outskirts of the governorate and into Rafah. These relocation orders have not included guarantees of safety, accommodation and return, and therefore amount to forcible transfer.”

“Repeated relocation orders issued by Israeli authorities over four months of hostilities have forced tens of thousands of people to flee multiple times to areas that are not safe and where shelter is not available,” said Caredda. “Palestinians are being pushed into tiny corners, narrow alleys, and overcrowded shelters while residential areas continue to be pounded.”

“Israel originally designated some of the relocation areas as ‘safe zones’, but they have been heavily bombarded. The UN estimates that 67 percent of the Gaza Strip, or 246 square kilometres, has been placed under evacuation orders.”

Contact:
NRC global media hotline: media@nrc.no, @nrc_norway
Ahmed Bayram, Middle East Media Adviser, in Amman: ahmed.bayram@nrc.no

The South African Government has just “made an urgent request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to consider whether the decision announced by Israel to extend its military operations in Rafah, which is the last refuge for surviving people in Gaza, requires that the court uses its power to prevent further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. “Under Article 75(1) of the Rules of Court, ‘The Court may at any time decide to examine proprio motu whether the circumstances of the case require the indication of provisional measures which ought to be taken or complied with by any or all of the parties.’ …

“The South African government said it was gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large scale killing, harm and destruction. This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court’s Order of 26 January 2024.” See from Jan. 26: “World Court Orders Israel to Abide by Genocide Convention and Stop Killing.”

The UN Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution based on the ICJ Order of provisional measures calling for a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Middle East Eye reports: “Nicaragua has warned Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Canada that it will take the countries to the International Court of Justice over allegations that weapons they are providing Israel are being used in a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

Al-Haq and other Palestinian human rights and legal groups have just released the statement: “Deadly Assault on Rafah and Imminent Forced Expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza in Continuing Nakba, Requires Urgent International Intervention.”

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Boyle’s books include The Bosnian People Charge Genocide (1996) Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2009) and World Politics, Human Rights and International Law (2021). He was featured on the news release “On Israel: Lawyer Who Applied Genocide Convention for Bosnia Recommends it Now for Palestinians.”

He said today: “This is a good move by South Africa. The Court should issue new provisional measures of protection for the Palestinians especially given that Israel has continued its genocidal acts in wanton violation of the Court’s Order of January 26 and is threatening catastrophic genocide against the Palestinians by invading Rafah.” See from the Bisan Center for Research and Development: “128 Days on Israel’s Aggression and Two Weeks after the ICJ Ruling, Israel is Continuing its Genocide.”

“The warning from Nicaragua is significant. It could lead to World Court lawsuits against these four States for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, an Emergency Hearing by the World Court, another round of oral arguments, and new provisional measures of protection for the benefit of the Palestinians that would go to the Security Council for enforcement and, if that does not succeed, to the United Nations General Assembly for enforcement under the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950). It is telling that Nicaragua is doing this because they won a resounding World Court Lawsuit against the United States from 1984 to 1986 for illegally mining their harbors. Although the United States richly deserves it too, it would be difficult for Nicaragua to successfully sue the United States for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians because of its disingenuous Reservation to Article 9 of the Genocide Convention denying such jurisdiction to the World Court.”

Nicaragua has also filed a Declaration of Intervention in the South Africa case, which other countries can do and several, including Jordan and Bangladesh, have stated they will.

See New York Times article from Monday: “Dutch Court Moves to Block Export of Fighter Jet Parts to Israel.”

The city of Flint in Michigan has launched a program, Rx Kids, that gives all mothers $1,500 while they are pregnant and $500 per month for the first year of their child’s life. 

SCOTT SANTENS; scott@scottsantens.com, @scottsantens
    Santens is an author on universal basic income and the founder and president of the Income to Support All Foundation. 

Santens celebrated the new Flint program. He told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “I like that Flint is doing something more universal than a lot of other cities are doing. Sometimes the thinking is ‘let’s target income, and make sure [recipients are] beneath the line.’ But it’s so much better to provide universally. If you’re going to be a parent in Flint, you can get this program. If you make someone jump through hoops––[like making parents provide] copies of their previous three years of tax returns––then people who need the program end up getting excluded from it. It’s [also] much easier to attack a program as being for ‘them’ if you don’t receive it yourself.”

Santens noted that the program in Flint is permanent, unlike many other cities that have begun to implement universal cash programs as small pilot programs. “A lot of these city-based pilots around the country promote their plan as being a pilot test. But when it comes to getting money to kids in their first year of life, the evidence is very strong.” In contrast to the enhanced Child Tax Credit, Flint’s program also allots money during pregnancy. 

Santens pointed to longitudinal studies out of North Carolina and Alaska. Alaska has had a form of universal income, distributed through a dividend, since 1982. Cash payments are delivered without a means test or a work requirement. “The amount in Alaska is usually one to two thousand dollars, and it’s provided once a year, so you get a natural experiment situation. Some kids are born and get the payment immediately, whereas others have to wait [nearly] a whole year before they get it. We see that when kids get that extra thousand dollars, there is a 10 percent reduction in instances of child abuse reported to child protective services. That’s per thousand dollars. They’ve looked at reduced child obesity. [The payments] also positively impact women while they’re pregnant, so kids are born healthier with healthier birth weights, which is associated with [many] positive health impacts [over time].

“Multiple studies have been done that look at long-term return on investment of investing in kids. Child poverty is not free. It’s expensive to all of society; we pay for it in terms of taxes going to the criminal justice system, taxes to Medicare and Medicaid, our own insurance higher premiums. We spend money on all these things. It doesn’t make sense to spend $60,000 a year to keep someone in prison if that could have been avoided if that person had a healthier childhood and more money as a baby. We need to look at this with a wider lens. With the enhanced Child Tax Credit, we were arguing over $100 billion. But the return on investment is 10 times that––it’s 10 to one. 

“The cost of child poverty is calculated at over a trillion dollars per year. The younger [we give kids money], the more impactful it is. The program in Flint [will help kids] start off on the right foot. I hope other areas take note and start doing what they can. We know that this stuff works.”

Convoys arrived in communities in Arizona, California and Texas early this month to rally for border security. In Eagle Pass, Texas, some community members and experts expressed concerns about the anti-immigrant rhetoric employed by the convoy there.

HEIDI BEIRICH; heidi@globalextremism.org, @heidibeirich, @globalextremism 
    Beirich is cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE). 

America’s Voice held a press call with Beirich and several U.S. Representatives. They called the Take Our Border Back rallies part of an “escalating standoff between Texas and the federal government…fueling a dangerous climate of potential right-wing violence and vigilantism at the border.” 

Beirich told the Institute for Public Accuracy that the America’s Voice press call prompted important reporting––but she wished the coverage had been there already. “People should have been watching this. It’s a far-right movement that has gone under the radar, and it shouldn’t have, given [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.” Beirich pointed to the convoy’s use of Great Replacement rhetoric, a “conspiracy theory directly connected to mass violence. [GPAHE] does monitoring of unregulated social media platforms like Gab and Telegram, and [saw] that Great Replacement rhetoric spiked to heights not seen in six months. They are radicalizing the MAGA movement into anti-immigrant rhetoric. Abbott is doing his part to demonize the immigrant situation. It’s dangerous––not just for migrants but for anyone [the far right] thinks might be an immigrant.” 

Beirich noted that the convoy was smaller than expected and “thankfully peaceable.” But an Eagle Pass migrant center was evacuated after militia groups involved in the Take Our Borders Back rally threatened the facility. Approximately 175 migrants were relocated to other facilities around Texas after a militia member “threatened to torch the Eagle Pass site.”

Beirich says the convoy is “riling up the far right.” 

GPAHE covers transnational hate movements––especially in countries that don’t get as much attention for their far-right movements, such as Portugal, Ireland and Australia––as well as U.S. groups that export hate to other countries, usually in the form of anti-LGBTQ and anti-women’s-rights thinking about bodily autonomy and abortion. Beirich told the Institute for Public Accuracy that “the American press hasn’t done a good enough job [covering] Christian nationalists or the [groups like] Alliance Defending Freedom” in particular. These organizations have “gotten a pass,” she said, “given that their angle is to transform this country––or, at a minimum, to pull back the civil rights of certain populations like LGBTQ [people] and women.” She also pointed to the need for more coverage of people living in the Eagle Pass community who have spoken out about the convoy.