04/14/23 04/14/23 [captiong made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> what we areitnessing is the opening salvo in a campaign by antiabortionctivists to use the conrvative capture of ban the urts to n abortion nationwide. amy: the u.s. justice department has asked the supreme court to block in appeals court ruling limiting access to mifespristone

. then to president biden's trip to ireland, marking the 25th anniversary of the good friday agreement that ended three decades of fighting in northern ireland. finally, in new jersey, day five of the first faculty strike in rutgers universities 257-year history. and we will speak to a cuban journalist as washington and havana hold talks focused on migration. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. florida's republican governor ron desantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law thursday. the ban will take effect if the

florida's current 15-week ban is upheld at the conservative-controlled state supreme court, where it is being challenged. the six-week ban would make exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking. in such cases, survivors could get an abortion up to 15 weeks into pregnancy but only if they are able to provide official documentation such as a police report or medical records. since the u.s. supreme court overturned roe v. wade last year, many pregnant people in the south have traveled to florida for abortions. democratic minority leader in florida fentrice driskell spoke out against the ban thursday. >> this is not reasonable because it amounts to an outright ban. most women don't know they are pregnant at six weeks. let's be clear about the silent part. you just don't want women to have choice. amy: meanwhile, in washington state, u.s. district judge thomas rice has rebuffed wednesday's appeals court ruling

that temporarily restored access to the abortion medication mifespristone across the u.s. but with restrictions. judge rice said the drug is to remain available restriction-free to 17 states and the district of columbia following his ruling last friday ordering the fda to not roll back access to mifepristone. the justice department also said it is asking the u.s. supreme court for an emergency order to halt wednesday's restrictions on mifepristone. protests to save abortion are planned across the nation over the weekend. we'll have to latest on the state of reproductive rights in the after headlines. calls are growing for supreme court justice clarence thomas to be impeached after propublica on thursday released more damning information about his relationship with republican megadonor harlan crow. in 2014, thomas and his family sold a house and two vacant lots in savannah, georgia, to harlan crow for about $130,000 but

never disclosed the sale, which appears to be a violation of the 1978 ethics in government act. this comes after propublica published a bombshell investigation last week detailing unreported luxury trips harlan crow lavished on thomas over 20 years. in addition to being a major benefactor to thomas and the gop, crow is also an avid collector of nazi memorabilia. he has a signed copy by hitler of mein kampf. federal authorities have arrested a 21-year-old massachusetts man over the recent leak of highly classified pentagon intelligence documents. attorney general merrick garland nounced the arrest thursday. >> today the justice department arrested jack teixeira in connection with an investigation into alleged and unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national events information. teixeira is an employee of the

united states air force national guard. amy: teixeira is an enlisted airman first class, one of the air national guard's lowest ranks. he worked in the guard's 102nd intelligence wing. federal authorities say he was also the leader of an online chat group that shared information about guns and racist memes on the discord online platform popular among gamers. he's due in federal court in boston, massachusetts, today for his arraignment where he faces charges under the espionage act. a newly discovered batch of classified u.s. intelligence documents leaked online shows infighting among russian officials over the war in ukraine. the documents reveal russia's federal security service accused the russian military of downplaying the number of casualties in ukraine due to the reluctance of officials to convey bad news up the chain of command. other newly-discovered leaked documents reveal the u.s. has been closely spying on u.n. secretary-general antonio guterres. u.s. intelligence officials

accused him of being overly soft on russian president vladimir putin. meanwhile, germany's reign minister has urged china to use its influence on moscow to push for an end to the war following similar calls from the french president and european union. in russia, supporters of alexy navalny say the jailed opposition leader's health has rapidly deteriorated in recent days. spokesperson kira yarmysh says navalny lost nearly 20 pounds in just two weeks after complaining of stomach pains. >> conclude idea he is being poisoned. [indiscernible] did not die immediately but to suffer. amy: navalny is one of president

prince most prominent critics. in 2020, he narrowly survived an apparent assassination attempt when he was poisoned with the nerve agent novichok. saudi arabia has exchanged more than 800 prisoners of war with yemen's houthi rebels. it's the largest such prisoner exchange since 2020 and comes after saudi arabia and iran recently agreed to restore ties, boosting the prospects for a negotiated settlement to the u.s.-supported, saudi-led war on yemen, which has left over 21 million people in need of assistance. meanwhile, saudi arabia has reached a deal to resume consular services with syria after the first trip by a syrian foreign minister to the kingdom since syria's civil war began in 2011. the award-winning central american independent news outlet el faro announced thursday it's relocating most of its operations from el salvador to costa rica as repression against free press intensifies under the

government of the salvadoran president nayib bukele. el faro journalists and newsroom staff have faced physical threats, judicial persecution, and in 2021 it was revealed nearly two dozen of them were being surveilled with the israeli nso group's pegasus spyware. president biden announced thursday his administration plans to expand health care access to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the u.s. as children. people with deferred action for childhood arrivals, or daca, would be able to enroll in medicare if they're low income or find coverage through the affordable care t. this comes at a time where t rate of uninsured people in e country is at a record high, north dakota's republican governor doug burgum signed a law tuesday banning trans girls and women from participating in school sports. similar laws now exist in 19 other states, though a new rule proposed by biden administration is seeking to outlaw such blanket bans, setting

conservative states up for a clash with the federal government. meanwhile, in nebraska, state senator machaela cavanaugh has been filibustering an anti-trans package for seven weeks. the measure seeks to ban gender-affirming care for minors and penalize their healthcare providers. >> willing to give you everything i can for your children and i will continue no matter happens today. i am sorry there is nothing more i can do within my control. i am doing everything i can within my control and i am sorry. amy: nebraska state senator cavanaugh has blocked every related bill from consideration in the legislature, vowing to "burn this session to the ground over this bill." nebraska's filibuster rules allow for taking bathroom breaks and sitting. and in france, thousands of

people flooded the streets of thursday in the latest protests against president emmanuel macron's measure raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. the mobilizations came as france's top court is expected to rule today on the policy's constitutionality which macron rammed through by executive fiat. in paris, protesters stormed the headquarters of luxury group lvmh, demanding france's wealthiest contribute more to financing the state pension. >> they are looking for solutions to finance the pension system. there is a simple solution, it is to take from the pockets of billionaires. we are here at the headquarters of lv mh, the richest billionaire of all billionaires in france and in the whole world stop if the social security funds are running out, they can come and get money her among

other places. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now!'s juan gonzález in chicago. hi, juan. juan: hiamy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: we begin today's show looking at the status of abortion access in united states. less than a year after the supreme court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in roe v. wade, it is expected to weigh in today on a ruling set to take effect saturday that effectively overrides the food and drug administration's 20-year-old approval of the medication abortion pill mifespristone. this comes after the fifth circuit court of appeals wednesday partially blocked last week's ruling by a trump-appointed federal judge in texas that banned the pill nationwide. it upheld parts of the decision that will only allow patients to

access the pill through a doctor's office or clinic and not through the mail or over the counter. meanwhile in washington state, u.s. district judge thomas rice has rebuffed wednesday's appeals court ruling saying the drug is to remain available restriction-free in 17 states and the district of columbia following his ruling last friday ordering the fda to not roll back access to mifespristone as a result of a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general in those 17 states and d.c. protests to save abortion are planned across the country this weekend, including in florida, where governor ron desantis has just signed a six-week abortion ban into law that will take effect if the state's current 15-week ban is upheld at the conservative-controlled state supreme court, where it is being challenged. for more, we are joined by amy

littlefield, abortion access correspondent at the nation. her most recent piece "a , conservative christian judge rules against medication abortion. how hard will democrats fight back?" before we go to the nationwide battle, amy littlefield, although they are all connected, let's go to the latest that has just taken place in florida. ron desantis signing yesterday a six-week abortion ban. talk about what this means. >> first, i want to say, amy, happy belated birthday. i wish we were here celebrating and not staring down the ghost of anthony comstock and the looming possibility of a nationwide abortion ban. but you are right to start with florida because that is absolutely essential. as you look at the map of abortion access in this country, florida is almost an island in the south. in the six months after the supreme court overturned roe v.

wade, no state saw a rise in abortion patients traveling to the state for care than florida. there were more than 7000 additional abortions that happened in the state after the dobbs decision compared to before that six month period. florida has been a haven for abortion patients all across the south. the fact they now have the six-week ban is going to have a ripple effect across the entire nation because we are going to see people pushed further and further out. we will see weight times extending clinics across the country in order to meet the need of this surge in patients. there will be an untold number of people who resigned themselves to unwanted egnancies because of this. juan: amy, could you talk about what happened on wednesday with the three-judge panel in the

fifth circuit court of appeals in texas partially upholding a nationwide ban on mifespristone that a federal judge issued there? what that water is going to look like on the ground -- what that order is what it looked like on the ground? >> that is the big question, juan, and the reigning sentiment among abortion providers and legal experts is confusion. we don't have a script or something like this, for a judge trying to revoke the government agency in charge of reviewing drugs, trying to roll back the gains of scientific advancements in approvals. and so as best we can tell what happened, to recap, a rogue judge in texas tried to revoke the fda's 23 year old approval of mifespristone last friday and th ithe middle of the night, overnight onednesday, cue

trump appointees who are the most conservative judges in our country, looked at that ruling and said, ok, even we thank judge matthew kacsmaryk what you far. you can't reach back 23 years and revoke the approval of a drug like this. the statute of limitations does not allow that. but what they did do is try to roll back the clock to a time before 2016 when the fda's regulations required people seeking medication abortion to go to a clinicn-person three times to take a higher dose of the drug that causes more side effects, that capped the gestational age for medication abortion at seven weeks instead of 10 weeks, and require doctors rather than nurse practitioners or physician assistants to prescribe it. so they are trying to reinstate this reality. if the fifth circuit gets their way, that is what will happen.

of course, there are mitigating factors, including even when there were regulations in place, there was off label use of mifespristone that allow people who were through 10 weeks to get access to medication abortion. so we don't know how the fda is going to respond to whatever ruling ends coming from the supreme court. what we do know is right now nothing has changed because these orders are not in effect. medication abortion is still available in states where it was legal and unavailable in states where it is illegal unless you're going to go to planc.org for ways around those legal channels. all eyes are on the supreme court and defender of abortion rights are in the highly and enviable position of relying on the supreme court and its three trump nobodies who were put on that court precisely to undermine abortion rights, to

save abortion access in america. there is another -- juan: go ahead. i'm sorry. >> i was going to say there is another important piece you have covered on the show and that is the ghost of anthony comstock that is hanging over all of this. i am glad you had laura mciver thompson on the show step it is amazing we need a 19th-century historian to explain the state and future of abortion rights in america. but both judge a few kacsmaryk's ruling benefits court ruling that came out -- and the fifth court ruling that came out the reinstatement of the comstock act to be used in stopping that emailing the medication abortion drugs. and that could be catastrophic and if the supreme court

supports that idea, it would be tantamount potentially to a nationwide ban on abortion, including in blue states because it is very hard for clinics to operate if they can't use the mail. juan: you mention the supme court, how likely is this to get there and how quickly do you envision it getting to the court? >> it could happen very fast because the biden administration -- you know, we have the situation where there are conflicting rulings. the fifth circuit court of appeals has been wanting a judge out of washington state has said in 17 states and washington, d.c., the fda may not impose any new requirements. so the fda is facing these two conflicting rulings. i think what abortion rights advocates are hoping is this are room court is going to act -- supreme court is going to act between now and saturday before the fifth circuit court ruling would take effect in order to preserve access to mifespristone

, medication abortion. that is the best case scenario that we don't know if the supreme court is going to say. even if they do, in and save the day when it comes to medication abortion, i think everyone should be paying close attention to what they say on the 1873 comstock act and whether they think it could apply to the mailing a medication abortion drugs. and devices. amy: on thursday, democracy now! reached francine coeytaux, the co-founder of plan c. it provides information to how people are accessing at home abortion online. >> if you are person whcan affordo go online and purchase the pills, go online and purchase them, put them in your medicine cabinet and share with friends, tell people about i make sure you have access to ese pill

there are many rows of aess on our plan c website will tell you how to do whereverouiv, what your axis -- very safe and up until today, lal pills. if you are a clinician, continue to do what you can to provide an do the best you can. if y are a lawyer, step up and fight this undemocratic attack on use of judicia to try to literally write all sorts of conventions that are really so undemocratic iis hard to believe there happening. if youre an activt come to get out in the streets and talk about this. do your bit. everyone needs to step up. i think this is a ment in time and we all have a role and this

ll not btaken away because its really an attack on our agencyon our rights, on our human autonomy. amy: that is francine coeytaux, the co-founder of plan c. this follows up on a quote of yours in your piece, amy, from the founder of holm's health saying "i don't think the courts are the only path for justice, that comes from seven who has to the state of texas 11 times. we cannot be too naïve to think the only path for justice here is going to be in the courts." what are the other options? we are going to end with that. we are at a point where about a dozen states have outlawed abortion. talk about the grassroots movement and what difference that can make in this country. >> the grassroots movement here is huge. just because you are not hearing about it doesn't mean it is not happening. that can be intentional.

aid access has seen a huge surge in people seeking advanced provision, meaning ordering medication abortion kits so they have them on hand in case they need them or need to give them to a friend. all of the different telemedicine services have seen a surge in interest and questions about getting medication abortion ahead of time. so people are preparing to help each other, to help their neighbors to be ready. those grassroots networks are huge. sometimes they are through the legal channels like abortion funds that are paying for people's flights, doing their lives, are getting people to abortion clinics. sometimes they are underground and less formalized and have to do with bringing pills in from groups from mexico or overseas. and providers have been out front saying, whatever the court is going to do here, we are

going to wait to hear from the biden administration because we take our orders from the fda. i have one final thing that can happen, which is for democrats. we have seen democratic officials at the state level and saves like california, washington state, massachusetts, new york stockpiling medication abortion pills. democrats in congress, i have something you can do today. introduced legislation to repeal the comstock act. even if it doesn't pass, put every republican in congress on record trying to resuscitate the ghost of a man who wanted to ban contraception and boasted of driving his targets to suicide with his and types entity crusades. bring anthony comstock back. let's have a public airing about his legacy because republicans understand they cannot ban abortion nationwide unless they're able to resuscitate this law from 1873. and that is what they are trying

to do. democrats, if they needed a plan on abortion, i'm giving you a plan. try this, repeal the comstock act. that is the strategy for antiabortion activists within forward and these lawsuits are clear evidence of that. amy: there are republicans who also are pro-choice like cops never maze stop >> of course. and we need to hear from them and we need to hear -- have a full airing because abortion rights are popular. they popular across party lines. referendum after referendum has shown as wisconsin state supreme court election just showed is that. antiabortion strategists are trying to go through these back channels using conservative cords that have been stacked with trump appointees. the more we can talk about this in public, the better. amy: amy littlefield, abortion access correspondent at the nation.

we will link to your piece "a conservative christian judge rules against medication abortion. how hard will democrats fight back?" next up, we go to ireland as president biden is there marking the 20th anniversary of the good friday agreement that ended more than three decades of fighting in northern ireland. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "wrath of my madness" by queen latifah. this which should become the first female rapper to be inducted to the national congress registry for her 1989 album "all hail the queen." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. president biden is wrapping up a trip this week to ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the u.s.-brokered peace deal known as the good friday agreement that ended three decades of fighting in northern ireland. earlier today, biden visited his

ancestral hometown in county mayo. on thursday, he addressed the irish parliament in dublin. pres. biden: this week works vital milestone for peace, 25 years ago the belfast good friday agreement -- 25 years ago, one of my best friends in the senate come a great friend to this day, george mitchell, he said there are 300 days a failure, 700 days of failure, one day of success. but it was a success that one day but more is to be done. yesterday i was in belfast on honor those committed to peace. i think, i think the united kingdom should be working closer with ireland on this endeavor. political violence must never be allowed to take control on this island. amy: president biden's visit

comes less than two months after british prime minister rishi sunak announced he had reached a deal with the european union on post-brexit trade rules for northern ireland. sunak said the deal will remove "any sense of border in the irish sea." we go now to derry in northern ireland where we are joined by eamonn mccann. journalist, writer, activist, anformer member of the northern ireland assembly. also took part in the march on bloody sunday in 1972 and helped form the bloody sunday trust. he is the author of the recently republished 1974 book "war and an irish town." given your history and also talking about the present this week, the visit of president biden, can you talk about the significance of this trip in northern ireland and ireland? >> [inaudible]

on view, [indiscnible] ap still that present biden hielf -- it has worked out. [indiscernible]

that would have been a huge publicelations triph for mr. biden. all the parties are not serving together -- good friday agreement itself. [indiscernible] this must be a bitter disappointment to america and ireland o were expting unrestrained celebration. mr. biden was at the center of it. it hasn't happened and i don't think it is going happen anytime soon. juan: could you talk a little bit about what is the cause of

the current deadlock among the various parties? also, how do you see brexit as a threat to building peace in northern ireland? >> there are man factors. [indiscernib] a brexit strategy -- [inaudible]

[indiscernible] those who want to see had transiti, terrific. you have in 2023, come to the front again.

we are witnessing that today. juan: what has been the reaction by various interest groups in ireland and inow -- and in northern ireland? >> talking about division. [indiscernible]

[inaudible] you can't say,ait a minute. no recourse. [indiscernible] have a buddy working together to refuse the amnesty bill which the conservative government is insistent on imposing upon

people. [indiscernible] the conservatives do not want the atrocities to be held to account. what a tangled web we have woven. amy: eamonn mccann, give her been with us journalist, writer, activist in derry, northern ireland. next up, it is day five of the first faculty strike many rutgers universities 257-year history. we will speak with one of the professors on strike. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: rutgers strikers singing to the tune of "hey baby." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we go now to new jersey, where faculty at the state-run rutgers university have entered their fifth day of a strike. this is the first faculty strike in rutgers's 257-year history. it's being organized by three unions that represent more than 9000 professors, lecturers, graduate assistants, and researchers at rutgers' three campuses in new brunswick, newark, and camden. they are demanding increased pay and better job security, especially for poorly paid graduate workers and adjunct faculty. we are joined now by donna murch. she is an associate professor of history at rutgers university and new brunswick chapter president of rutgers aaup-aft, one of the academic workers unions on strike.

professor, welcome back to [captioning made possible by democracy now!] democracy now! can you lay out exactly what is at issue here and also when you go to the rutgers website, he says business as usual, people should go to class -- yet, this is the first strike in 257 years and it involves thousands and thousands of workers there. >> thank you so much. it is a pleasure to be here and talk about what is going on at rutgers, which is very exciting. i would say the core issues that brought the unit coalition together -- union coalition together, they are very connected to what happened to the university during the pandemic. riker response to the pandemic was to lay off 5% of its workforce. when it laid them off, they lost her health insurance and tuition benefits at a time when covid was hitting new jersey and new york like a storm.

that necessitated the unions come together and begin to bargain and think of themselves as really a wall-to-wall coalition. that history is very important and it has brought us to this point in which three unions have gone on strike. the core issues are, number one, the way in which upward the central administration -- upper central administration from upper management has been growing and growing and siphoning off of the core needs of the university. so what we are calling for in this moment of runaway inflation is for the rutgers management to come to the table and really think about what the university is for -- teaching, research, and serce to our community's. the core demands are, one, a living wage. equal pay for equal work for

adjunct workers. so you have adjunct who are being paid starvation wages, many of whom are on medicaid who can't afford rent and food and all the essentials of life. at the heart of the strike is really trying to change university which is dependent on sweated informal labor where they have to apply for the contracts every six months and had to teach at multiple institutions just to cobble together the bare minimum. a fight to think about adjuncts, graduate workers, u.s. counselors, contingents, nontenure track faculty. this industrial vision is about holding of the different job categories, figuring out how they come together and they work in a solidarity. in terms of rutgers saying on

its website business as usual, well, that is not true. our estimate is 75% of the classes are shut down and because of the broad nature of this strike, even construction workers on campus have walked off the job so as to not violate the picket lines. i think one of the things that has also been profound is the outpouring of support and participation by the undergraduates. there have been thousands and thousands of people in the street and significant numbers are undergraduate workers as well as people from the three unions. i have taught at rutgers for 20 years and this is the biggest popular gathering i have seen. there were so many people on monday after we had a rally on tuesday that they led a march that shut down george street, the main drag in new brunswick. juan: donna, i wanted to ask you, this is become almost this spring of academic revolts

around the country. we have seen strikes at university of california. we have seen university of illinois, chicago. right now there are three other universities in the chicago area on strike. chicago state university, eastern illinois, and governor stitt university with thousands of faculty there. yet many of these universities, like rutgers, are experiencing -- they don't call it profits, they call it surpluses for reserves -- over the past few years. how do you explain the universities being flush with cash yet telling her faculty and their employees there is not enough money to give them adequate raises? >> thank you so much for that. we miss you at rutgers. it is good to be here with you. that is extremely important.

i can talk about how this leads to the national movement through the lens of rutgers. the rutgers administration has been crying broke and the justification for not responding to demands is they simply don't have the money. our union hired a forensic accountant to go through all of the public records because rutgers is a public university, it is subject to transparency requirements. the research demonstrates. clearly the university has the largest unrestricted reserves in its history. it is up to 886 million and these are the rainy day funds that are normally used in times of downturn or to make essential needs of its workers. the way i explained this is it is where i started. the neoliberal university, which has been literally the upper level administration has metastasize.

they have doubled in size the past 10 years. they are constantly hiring different vice president of this, vice president of that. largely accountants and mbas have no explains in her education. it is true in the last 30 years, there has been a defunding of higher education from the federal government and from state government. at rutgers, we have been able to win important concessions, including our loving -- the lobbying of the union that won back a significant portion of funding in 2020. but there is nothing between them having large unrestricted reserves and their labor policies. i think it grows out of an idea that they want labor to be as cheap as possible and that it is really the people at the very top who benefit from the university. so i think at its core, this is a political and economic

struggle to say tuition come the students are largely funding university, their needs matter, that the faculty come the graduate students, graduate workers, the many different categories of workers that come together to make the university possible matter. we make rutgers. juan: also, the current present of rutgers jonathan holloway, respected scholar and a history and african-american studies. he always talks about the beloved community. but he has been threatening to go to court to get -- to seek an injunction against the strike? >> thank you. this is such an important piece. i will just say we are going through incredibly intense negotiations right now. a lot of us have been up all night working on this, figuring out what to do. we are under injunction threat. i will talk a little more later about what is going on in trenton today and how you can help.

but we started bargaining -- our contract was up at the end of june 2022. we started bargaining in may. many times they did not bargain in earnest. the refused to respond your counterproposals. the most shocking was the grads submitted a proposal for a living wage and they failed to respond to that for 7, 8 months. we are only now beginning to have even a substantive discussion about moving grads to livable wages. these resistance tactics have been going on all along. when it became clear that bargaining was not going well and the union was mobilizing, jonathan holloway sent a letter to all of the different parts of our bargaining unit through rutgers email and all the undergraduates saying public sector strike in new jersey are illegal and that those that

participated or participate in them are subject to fines not only of the individual union but individual fines and basic threat of arrest. there was another email said several weeks later doubling down on this. he was sending a clear message that we will go to the courts to criminalize the strike. i want to say something about the technicalities because it is important. public-sector strikes are not illegal in new jersey. if you go on strike, the police do not arrest you. the only way criminalization happens is the employer goes to court, they asked for an injunction, and then they go back to the workers and see if they're willing to cease and desist. if not, then they go back. so jonathan holloway will go back to the courts to seek penalties and he'll ask for specific penalties and there will be a hearing. these have been granted but they have not been granted in all

cases. that is very important, the mechanisms of the injunction, that it has to be sought by the employer -- which is a clear sign that jonathan holloway, and a time where we have seen the largest protest in american history around issues of criminalization, he is going to criminalize a strike in a deep loose state like new jersey. this has enormous consequences for labor. that helps to explain the incredible coalition that has come together. there are thousands of people there, all the people i talked about, the undergraduates, but also people coming from labor unions all over the country. the new jersey afl-cio, central labor counsel. everyone is recognizing we have a democratic governor and rutgers is one of the largest employers and the strike is really a threat not only to all of us at rutgers, but to new jersey and the rest of the country at this moment where we are seeing this incredible surge

in higher education of organizing. i have to give a shout out to grad organizing all of the country. in the 1990's, we organize the union. i think the graduate students have shown us what is possible. amy: donna murch, thank you for being with us, associate professor of history at rutgers university and new brunswick chapter president of rutgers aaup-aft, one of the academic workers union on strike. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. he has taught at rutgers for the past seven years. we end today's show with a cuban -- u.s. policy toward cuba as officials met wednesday to discuss migration from cuba. this comes after the u.s. embassy in havana started to process immigrant visas in january for the first time since 2017. it also comes as the biden administration faces increasing calls to lift its designation of

cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and also the related embargo that severely limited trade and more with cuba for decades. from or we are joined by liz oliva fernández. looking at a new documentary of the politica interest driving cuba policy under president biden. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. if you can talk about the significance of these negotiations that are not getting very much attention between cuba and washington that are happening this week here. >> first, thank you, amy, for having me on the program. of course right now the united states is open to talk with cuba about immigration because you

need to know this is not only sanctions you are putting against a country, this is economic warfare the united states is playing with cuba. so right now this is having an effect in the u.s. because of the people from cuba coming to the united states. but they are not coming for political refugees, their coming to the united states as economic refugees because a situation in cuba. that is something the united states government, the biden administration is facing right now. juan: in terms of the historic policy of the united states allowing people to process normal visas through cuba, what is been a policy in the past? >> well, they have policies

dished visas for immigrants. family reification they call it. they have to process 20,000 immigration pieces a year and they never did that. they never passed the numbers. the politics is trying to get the people in the united states but in regular process because when you have this kind of law like -- there giving privilege to cuba in order to come to the united states as refugees, but they say it all the time it is about political refugees coming to cuba and that is wrong. that is inaccurate because most of the people who come to this country from cuba, they are

coming as economic refugees as i said. this is not something that is for the last year or the last 10 years, this is something coming from 60. for example, i have been in crisis my entire life. my mom has lived in crisis my entire life. the biggest cause of this crisis is the sanctions united states has put on cuba is when he gives my country. that is the consequence. maybe instead of talking about migration, i would rather united states, my government have conversations about what is causing this migration, what is causing the huge wave in the last years with migration. the cost is essential. maybe in the future, the united states government, the

administration have the will to talk about the real cost of this migration. juan: is a journalist, you interviewed bill young gonzalez, the cuba national who was at the center of an international custody battle as a child in 1999. that is a quarter-century ago. i remember going to miami covering the protest of the cuban exile community there insisting elian stay in the united states. at the clinton administration returned him to cuba and he is -- became a member of the cuban assembly? could you talk about the -- the national assembly? coulyou talk about your interview with him? >> i had the privilege to have an interview with elian and zealous. he is pretty glad to have a life in cuba.

now he is -- he is literally active. he recently formed part of the cuban assembly. he is open to try to help from his seat in the national assembly in cuba to try to get the normalization between cuba and the united states. he is willing to try and get a better relationship between the two countries because he really believes that it is a better future for us, a future when people from the united states can have normal relationships. amy: liz oliva fernández, i wanted to ask you about the designation by the u.s. government of cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and the effect that it has, especially

when biden was vice president under obama when relations were normalized before trump took that back. >> the state sponsor of terrorism is like a death sentence for cuba because nobody wants to do business with terrorists. cuba is not allowed to get credit, like people coming to my country for investments, because nobody was to be related with a country that is called a terrorist. for me, it is cynical and hypercritical -- hypocritical because not only open to the terrorist --

also a victim of terrorist attacks. for example, before september 11, cuba was the biggest terrorist attack in the western hemisphere. that is really bad because the people perpetrated this attack had been living freely in united states until their death. cuba doesn't have its own terrorist list, sponsored state of terrorism, but if we had the privilege that the united states has like you are a terrorist -- if cuba had that kind of privilege, like the united states, we could make the first name in that list. amy: we want to thank you so much for being with us. liz oliva fernández, award-winning cuban journalist with belly of the beast, now

touring the united states, journalist in cuba. that does it for our show. democracy now! is currently accepting applications for a digital fellow. learn more and apply at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]