President Obama’s remarks at the Islamic Center of Baltimore drew rave reviews from advocates working against Islamophobia—in no small measure because he spoke in the language they’ve been using for some time now. “Engagement with Muslim American communities must never be a cover for surveillance,” Obama said, during the first visit he’s made to a U.S. mosque during his presidency. “We can’t give in to profiling entire groups of people There’s no one single profile of terrorists. We can’t securitize our entire relationship with Muslim Americans.”

In a statement, grantee Muslim Advocates thanked Obama for “his heartfelt message of inclusion, particularly his message to American Muslim youth” and echoed the president’s sentiment that “engagement with American Muslim communities must not be a cover for surveillance or profiling simply based on faith.” Grantee Media Matters promoted the efforts of the student who introduced President Obama in Baltimore to call out examples of media bias against Muslims.

Third-place Iowa finisher Marco Rubio criticized the speech as suggesting that the U.S. discriminates against Muslims—apparently unaware of the significant number of hate crimes perpetrated against devotees of Islam in the U.S. since the Paris attacks, or the extensive efforts by advocates to document and combat them.

As attention in the presidential campaign shifted to New Hampshire’s contest next week, immigration advocates sought a silver lining in the harsh rhetoric of GOP leaders Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, mounting the argument that the longer those two dominated coverage, the more motivated Latinos and champions of less draconian immigration policies would be to register and turn out the vote. A Washington Post piece documented the GOP’s shift to a harder-right stance on immigration, dating the change to the Clinton years.

A group of more than 75 organizations, including grantee America’s Voice, wrote a new letter to the administration urging leaders to halt the ICE raids rounding up refugees fleeing violence in Central America, citing concerns about a lack of due process and legal representation for those caught up in the Dept. of Homeland Security actions.

Diplomatic talks aimed at ending the civil war in Syria broke down before they really began, amid recriminations over a government-led attack on the city of Aleppo buttressed by Russian airstrikes. The can was kicked down the road to Feb. 25, by which time negotiators hope to have at least sorted out who will represent anti-Assad opposition forces at the bargaining table.

The New York Times ran a story chronicling the effect of budget cuts on the police department in San Bernardino, California, the site of the shootout by a husband-and-wife terrorist team in December.

Among other grantee and advocate activities:

--The League of United Latin American Citizens’ effort to turn out Hispanics for the Iowa caucuses appears to have set a record.

--Grantees ReThink Media and the Center for New Community moved swiftly to counter a Wall Street Journal piece suggesting mosques were engines of radicalization in the U.S., publicizing questions about the author’s agenda.

--The Center for Migration Studies, in partnership with the Bipartisan Policy Center, convened a Feb. 10 discussion of the recent surge of migrants from the North Triangle countries in Central America, and the policy options for responding to the challenges that poses.

--Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress ran a piece on an undocument mother of three U.S. citizens the reporter says was deported despite having shown authorities a legal travel document.

--OSPC grantee Center for Victims of Torture published a report on Syrian and Iraqi torture survivors in Jordan.