President Obama repaired to Hawaii for the holiday break with a draft he’s preparing for the Jan. 12 State of the Union address—the final such speech of his presidency. Expectations for his final year in office are tempered by GOP control of both chambers on Capitol Hill, but 2015 closed with glimmers of bipartisan accord. On the legislative agenda in the new year are several Open Society priorities: addressing the upturn in opioid use, dealing with Puerto Rico’s debt crisis and criminal justice reform.
Despite progress in the fight against the Islamic State--Iraqi forces made strides toward recapturing Ramadi from ISIS—polls continued to show the American people anxious about terrorism and unhappy with the president’s strategy for fending off threats. The Justice Department charged a record number of individuals with terrorism-related offenses in 2015, according to a Washington Post report.
Evidence at year’s end suggested that 2015 could set a new record for gun sales.
Legal scholars debated whether the urgent need to crack down on ISIS’s use of social networks required revisiting the “clear and present danger” standard set forth in the First Amendment.
Immigration advocates, including a number of grantees, were alarmed at news reports of an administration plan to deport families crossing into the U.S. from the southern border over the past year. Set to begin in January, the ICE initiative is aimed at adults and children “who have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge,” according to the Washington Post, which estimated the plan could implicate hundreds of families. The plan drew fire from the Democratic presidential contenders. Grantee America’s Voice blasted the idea as an “extremely disturbing development,” saying “we thought the days of immigration raids on families were over….Let us hope DHS reverses course, and quickly.”
Grantees and advocates circulated an op-ed by Macedonia’s prime minister urging international cooperation in managing the ongoing refugee crisis. The actor Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for his starring role in the film “Borat,” announced that he and his wife, actress Isla Fisher, were donating $1 million to aid Syrian refugees.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, giving an unusual sit-down interview to a major news network, told ABC he doubted there would ever be a mass internment in the U.S. again, despite the fact that the court has never officially revisited its ruling in Korematsu v. the United States, the 1944 decision upholding an executive order to intern people of Japanese descent living in the U.S., including thousands of American citizens. The discussion was prompted by GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s call to bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. 
Authorities were investigating a fire set at a Houston mosque on Christmas Day. The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged law enforcement to probe the fire as a hate crime.
Jim Webb, who exited the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in October after failing to gain attention for much more than grumbling about face time during the debates, hinted he may mount an independent bid—a move that could have significant consequences for the 2016 race.

Among grantee and advocate activities:
--The Supreme Court is set Jan. 8 to consider a cert petition for EPIC vs. DHS, a suit filed by the Electronic Privacy and Information Center seeking to compel information about the Homeland Security department’s standards for handling private wireless networks during a period of national crisis.

--Human Rights First continues to push Congress to make a clear and specific authorization for the use of military force against ISIS, as members angle to revive debate over the issue when members return from break in early January. The New York Times’ editorial board urged Congress to act as well.

--Asian American groups continue to stand up in solidarity with Muslim organizations against hate speech and hate crime in the aftermath of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks.

--An analysis by the Brennan Center was cited in news stories asserting that despite rising anxiety about safety and police-induced fatalities, crime dropped to its lowest level in modern history in New York City in 2015.