Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S. and Russia had reached a tentative agreement to deliver humanitarian aid and move toward a ceasefire in Syria and a return to the negotiating table as soon as possible.  If the plan holds, and that is a significant “if” given the current climate, it “would mark the first sustained and formally declared halt to fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, early in the Arab uprisings,” according to the New York Times. ISIS is not a party to the tentative agreement; nor is the Nusra Front.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squared off in Milwaukee Thursday night, the first debate since Sanders’ convincing victory in the New Hampshire primary and a chance for Clinton to hit reset as the campaign moves to the Nevada caucuses (Feb. 20) and the South Carolina primary (Feb. 27).  Both strongly urged criminal justice reform to address racial disparities in arrests, sentencing and rates of incarceration—a strong indication of the significance of the African-American vote in key primary contests ahead.

Both candidates voiced support for President Obama’s immigration executive actions, criticized the ICE raids and called anew for comprehensive immigration reform, while Clinton criticized Sanders’ past votes on immigration legislation (Sanders defended his vote against guest worker language, citing grantee Southern Poverty Law Center’s own concerns).  Clinton also decried the anti-Muslim sentiments expressed by Donald Trump and others, pointing out the invaluable role Muslims in the U.S. play in counterterrorism investigations, and the danger of alienating Muslims the world over.

Clinton supporters launched a new organization, dubbed Every Citizen Counts, built to expand registration and turnout among black and Latino voters. The Clinton campaign also released a new ad proclaiming America’s criminal justice system to be “fundamentally broken” and pointing out that “African-Americans are more likely to be arrested by police and sentenced to longer prison terms for doing the same thing as whites do.”

Debate moderator Judy Woodruff name-checked George Soros among Clinton’s wealthy donors in a question about how her campaign is being financed. She sought to brush it off, pointing out such donors contributed to a superPAC rather than her campaign, and emphasized how many small donors were supporting her. 

Ted Cruz continues to campaign on his determination to rescind President Obama’s immigration executive actions, even as two of his former top staffers prepare to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that the actions represent an unconstitutional overreach.

Closer scrutiny of Obama’s final budget reveals it calls for an end to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which provides federal funds to reimburse state and local prisons that house immigrants in the country illegally who have been convicted of a crime.

The Los Angeles Unified School District voted to ban ICE raids on school grounds without prior approval. Elsewhere, faith leaders have responded to the fear among immigrants of being deported by offering sanctuary from the raids in churches.

Facebook stepped up efforts to police content having to do with terrorism on its platform, setting up a dedicated team to focus on content promoting terrorism, moving swiftly to pull down posts advocating terrorist activities, and running content aimed to counter messages from groups like ISIS. The effort was done following pressure from advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation among other groups.

George Soros wrote a piece in the Guardian warning that Europe and the U.S. were misguided if they believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was an ally in the battle against ISIS, arguing that he seeks to destroy Europe by helping to promote the flow of migrants from Syria throughout the region and fanning the flames of Islamophobia.

Among grantee activities:

--Kids in Need of Defense and the American Immigration Lawyers Association hosted a briefing on the urgent need for legal counsel for immigrant minors and cheering a new bill, the “Fair Day in Court in Kids” act to help provide access to lawyers and legal services.

--Muslim Advocates urged a Justice Department inquiry into the death of an Oregon man, killed with a shovel, who was identified as a “pillar of the Muslim community” in his home of Washington County.  

--A 2015 Human Rights First investigation into a detention facility housing immigrants and asylum seekers in Berks, Pennsylvania found health problems and delays in legal processing. This week, the group, along with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the American Immigration Council, helped facilitate a statement released by 30 mothers being held in the facility, seeking release along with their children, also being held. The detention center was recently denied renewal of its license to detain up to 96 individuals; the facility is appealing.