President Obama prepares for his final State of the Union address tomorrow night. He is expected to try to rally support for his efforts on immigration and gun violence as well as his strategy for combating the Islamic State—all top priorities in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.  On hand in the first lady’s guest box will be a Syrian refugee approved for refugee status and now living in Detroit, a living reminder of the administration’s refugee resettlement program—an effort congressional Republicans have sought to block. Also on hand will be one of the three Americans who thwarted a terrorist attack aboard a train bound for Paris last summer; several criminal justice reform advocates who champion reducing mass incarceration and aid inmates with post-prison re-entry into their communities—and a loved one of one of the shooting victims in San Bernardino, who has said the attack “should NOT encourage people to treat Muslims any differently than they would anyone else.”   The White House has indicated it will leave a seat vacant in the first lady’s guest box as a further tribute to the victims of gun violence. 

The House Armed Services Committee was set for a Tuesday hearing on the U.S. strategy for containing Islamic extremism in Iraq and Syria.

Immigration grantees continued to voice their unhappiness over the administration’s program to deport families who arrived in the US from Central America illegally and failed to persuade immigration judges of the merits of their asylum bids. America’s Voice collected and disseminated Spanish-language media coverage of the fear and anxiety generated by raids undertaken as part of the program.  

The Florida Legislature starts its 2016 session on Tuesday by considering a raft of anti-immigrant measures. Advocates planned protests in the state capitol.

A number of Muslim student associations began staging protests of Islamophobia on campuses across the country, inspired in part, according to organizers, by the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

On the presidential campaign trail, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump used the recent allegations of sexual assaults by migrants in Germany as evidence supporting his hard line against allowing Muslims into the country. Ted Cruz tacked to the left of Trump on immigration, saying he would not deploy a “deportation force” to address migrants in the country illegally, as Trump has suggested he would do. "No, I don't intend to send jackboots to knock on your door and every door in America. That's not how we enforce the law for any crime," Cruz was quoted as saying on CNN.

MoveOn.org launched a petition drive to pressure Ohio Sen. Rob Portman to distance himself further from Donald Trump. While Portman has endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s bid for the presidency, Moveon, America’s Voice and other grantees faulted Portman for continuing to accept money from campaign committees that raised money using Trump’s name. Meanwhile, a superPAC aligned with Kasich released a report blasting Trump’s immigration plan (including the infamous wall he’s said he’d build) as extremely expensive.

Among other grantee and advocate activities:

--America’s Voice was among the advocates decrying a round of pro-Trump robocalls in Iowa linked to a white nationalist group. The calls told potential voters “we don’t need Muslims.”

--Human Rights hailed the administration’s decision to transfer a Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay back to his home country, and reiterated its hope that President Obama would honor his pledge to close the facility.

--The Council for Islamic-American Relations hosted a conference on “Challenging Islamophobia” in Minnesota.  

--Just Security posted an article looking at the tensions between human rights law and the law of armed conflict that would come into play were an ISIS attack like the one in Paris happened on U.S. soil.