The Republican debate in South Carolina was a red-meat affair, with intensity rising as the stage shrunk (7 candidates on stage) and the Iowa caucuses drew nigh (Feb. 1). Candidates broke little new ground on guns, terrorism or immigration—unless you count the growing interest in whether a “natural born citizen” can stand as president, sparked by Ted Cruz’s Canadian birthright and destined to linger in the headlines as a Houston lawyer filed suit to test the proposition, left somewhat fuzzy by the founders and never frontally decided by the Supreme Court, that the child of a U.S. citizen living abroad automatically becomes a U.S. citizen at birth.   

The Democrats prepared for their next debate Sunday night, in keeping with the party’s seeming determination to air their contests at times designed to minimize audience. Bernie Sanders’s campaign has been spending a fair amount of time defending his votes on gun control, which broke with Democratic orthodoxy at several key junctures.

Grantees were active on Capitol Hill, gearing up to try to block a Senate procedural vote—likely next Wednesday--that would allow the upper chamber to take up House-passed legislation gumming up the president’s Syrian refugee resettlement. Human Rights First, MoveOn.org joined with refugee and faith-based groups in firing off action alerts, seeking to gin up calls to key Senate offices. Human Rights First also scheduled a press call, featuring Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Iraq and Syria (among other postings) and former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, who will discuss how the House bill would damage American security interests.

Meanwhile, state legislatures took up more strict measures aimed at warding off refugees. A bill in the Nebraska legislature would hold refugee groups liable for any crimes committed by refugees. In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback expanded a ban on Syrian refugees to include refugees from any country in the world.

Grantee CLINIC was involved in an effort to stop 12 families--33 mothers and children—from being immediately deported in a South Texas ICE raid.

Among other grantee activities:

--The Brennan Center and other civil liberties groups sent a letter to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, seeking to clarify the impact of a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act empowering the NSA to “capture foreigners’ calls and emails—including communications with Americans”—without a warrant.

--The Center for American Progress continued pressuring Congress to undo broad protections for the gun industry, shielding it from legal liability. The group released a new fact sheet and published a ThinkProgress piece.