Republicans prepared for Thursday night’s presidential debate, the GOP’s last showdown before Iowans go to their caucuses on Feb. 1, as the political world sought to game out Donald Trump’s decision to boycott the Fox News proceedings. Some of YouTube’s more popular personalities will be posing questions, including Nabela Noor, a Muslim American who posted a video last month sharing the pain of Islamophobia and blasting Donald Trump for peddling hate.

Latino organizations continue to try to capitalize on the emotion stirred by Trump’s harsh rhetoric. Univision announced plans for a pre-convention candidate forum in partnership with the League of United Latin American Citizens. The goal is to boost Latino turnout, especially among millennials, who comprise nearly 45 percent of the total projected Hispanic vote in 2016, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.

Marco Rubio tried some interesting jujitsu on immigration, seeking to maneuver around his role in pushing comprehensive reform by challenging the GOP establishment, saying its members’ approach has been to “do nothing.”

Harsh anti-immigrant measures proceeded apace at the state legislative level. A Florida measure which would allow the state to penalize local governments and law enforcement agencies who fail to enforce federal immigration laws, is moving forward in the state House, drawing protests from immigrant rights activists, including grantee America’s Voice, which launched a petition drive in the state to stop the bill.

Grantee the Sikh Coalition created a hate crime poster for communities and sent letters to law enforcement and school superintendents, urging them to be vigilant in guarding against bias.  

The Washington Post ran a piece asking a Danish politician to explain to the paper’s largely U.S.-based readership “why it’s ok to take valuables from refugees.”

Among other grantee activities:

--A group of 25 civil liberties organizations, led by grantees the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Democracy and Technology, pressured House Judiciary Committee leaders to open to public scrutiny a scheduled closed-door session to consider an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a cornerstone of the intelligence community’s surveillance powers that advocates believe is the next battleground to roll back secrecy and boost privacy protections in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. 

--Human Rights First urged the Obama administration to pressure Denmark to abandon its controversial new law permitting the government to seize the assets of refugees.

--Kids in Need of Defense cheered plans to open a new Colorado facility for child migrants crossing into the U.S. from Central America. The group’s president was quoted as saying the federal government was “better prepared but it’s not fully prepared” for the latest wave of children fleeing violence in their home countries.