The strong strain of anti-establishment sentiment that has marked the 2016 presidential campaign hit a high water mark in the New Hampshire primary voting, as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both cruised to convincing victories. Democrats pondered Sanders’ surprising strength among younger and female voters, while Republicans contemplated the longer-term demographic implications of voters flocking to Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim message. According to early exit polls, fully two-thirds of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire favored Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the country and having undocumented immigrants deported.

Advocates circulated coverage of remarks by Mexico’s former president, Felipe Calderon, proclaiming Donald Trump’s signature immigration control proposal dead on arrival: “We are not going to spend any one cent for such a stupid wall!”

Despite a surge in funding from global powers to help Syrian refugees, led by the United States, forces opposed to the Assad regime in country have begun openly questioning whether U.S. support for their struggle has begun to ebb, as government forces continue to enjoy a burst of momentum, aided by Russian airstrikes. News accounts of the situation on the ground in Syria grew ever more dire, with a Washington Post headline warning that the country “seems on the verge of an uncontrollable disaster.”

Obama’s final budget includes a 50 percent increase in funding for anti-ISIS operations, along with substantial outlays for cyber defense and counterterrorist drone missions. By one analysis, this budget puts Obama’s eight-year defense spending at $816.7b more than Bush’s eight-year tally.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter traveled to Brussels to implore European allies to step up their contributions to the war on ISIS, as a number of them struggled to figure out how to get Arab counterparts to do more. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, spoke out on the myriad threats facing the U.S., saying “I cannot recall a more diverse array of challenges and crises than we confront today.” 

A federal judge for the second time declined Texas’ bid to rebuff President Obama’s refugee resettlement program, effectively preventing the governor from barring Syrian refugees from coming into his state.

In Arizona, a laboratory for harsh anti-immigrant measures in recent years, the legislature is contemplating a series of new restrictive bills—withholding state revenues to communities that help shelter undocumented immigrants faced with deportation; requiring that judges mete out the harshest possible sentences to undocumented persons convicted of any crime; and requiring citizenship and legal residency of people seeking municipal ID cards.

In a timely reminder that the 2016 crop of presidential contenders does not have a monopoly on coarse xenophobia, former GOP congresswoman and 2012 candidate Michele Bachmann popped on up a radio show called End Times to denounce Muslim migrants as rapists bent on converting women to jihad and “destroying Western Christendom.”

Among other grantee activities:

--The Center for Community Change and America’s Voice teamed up to co-author a Huffington Post piece on how the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama’s immigration executive actions could help dispel the fear many undocumented immigrants live with every day.

--Human Rights First criticized Obama’s budget for failing to provide sufficient increase funding to help immigration courts cope with the surge in demand. The group also stated that “the small increase of the ceiling on refugee resettlement [is] inadequate if the United States is to demonstrate meaningful leadership in addressing the global refugee crisis.” 

--The ACLU and immigrant rights groups helped slow the momentum of a bill in the Florida legislature that would prevent communities from enacting “sanctuary” status and compel local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

--Advocates shared stories about Larycia Hawkins, a tenured professor at Wheaton College, an evangelical school in Illinois, who stepped down after being censored by administrators for saying she would wear a hijab in solidarity with Muslim women, and said that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same God.