Latest news with #ClaudiaTenney
New York Post
19 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
NY pols push IRS to probe nonprofit ‘sanctuary' groups helping defy Trump, federal immigration laws
Two New York Republicans are urging the IRS to probe four legal and migrant advocacy groups that have been taking taxpayer funding — while defying the Trump administration's illegal immigration crackdown. Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) and Claudia Tenney (R-Watertown) questioned the four groups' nonprofit status in a letter to the IRS after an expose by The Post that revealed the groups took in more than $600 million in public funds while simultaneously pushing New York's sanctuary policies. 'We are concerned that these organizations may be using tax-exempt resources to provide goods, services or legal advice that (1) encourages, (2), induce, or (3) aid and abet an alien in unlawfully entering, remaining in, or evading detection within the United States,' the lawmakers said in a Tuesday letter to IRS Commissioner William Hollis Long. 5 Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) and Claudia Tenney (R-Watertown) have pleaded with the IRS to probe four nonprofit migrant advocacy groups that have been taking taxpayer funding. Michael McWeeney The pro-sanctuary groups — the Bronx Defenders, the NY Immigration Coalition, Make the Road NY and NY Lawyer for the Public Interest — provide legal services to poor New Yorkers, including criminal defendants and migrants. They said based on prior IRS enforcement of rules for charitable groups the groups' sanctuary activities 'constitutes grounds for revocation of tax-exempt status.' The Bronx Defenders alone has received more than $500 million in city and state contracts since fiscal year 2018, according to The Post review. Make the Road NY was awarded $56 million, the NY Immigration Coalition $46 Million and NY Lawyers for the Public Interest, $19 million over the years. The groups pushed for a statewide sanctuary bill — the New York for All Act — that would bar state and local law enforcement from cooperating with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. The Bronx Defenders has fought to block ICE from operating at the Rikers Island jail complex and state courthouses. 5 The lawmakers sent a letter to IRS Commissioner William Hollis Long stating that the organizations are using the tax-exempt resources to possibly aid aliens who are staying in the United States unlawfully. Tomas E. Gaston 5 The four pro-sanctuary groups mentioned are Bronx Defenders, NY Immigration Coalition, Make the Road NY, and NY Lawyer for the Public Interest. X / @thenyic The other groups similarly encourage clients or the public not to cooperate with ICE, said the letter from Malliotakis and Tenney, who are members of the House Ways and Means Committee. They said IRS rules that grant groups tax-exempt status are for charitable, religious or educational purposes, 'not for groups that leverage taxpayer subsidized benefits to obstruct federal law.' 'Combined with federal tax-exempt benefits, these public subsidies shift the financial burden onto taxpayers who may oppose the recipients' efforts to shield removable aliens from enforcement,' the House members said. 5 The organizations all provide legal services to low-income New Yorkers, including migrants and criminal defendants. X / @MaketheRoadNY 5 The majority of the migrant-advocacy groups have also encouraged their clients not to cooperate with ICE. AP They also noted President Trump's April 28, 2025, executive order that directs agencies to withhold funds from sanctuary jurisdictions such as New York City that restrict or refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The IRS, lawmakers said, should examine whether the pro-sanctuary groups' actions 'obstruct' federal immigration enforcement' or engage in 'unlawful advocacy.' The lawmakers said 'we respectfully request that their tax-exempt status be revoked' if the IRS concludes they violated the rules. The IRS declined to comment, citing privacy laws for tax-exempt organizations. Representatives of the groups didn't respond to requests for comment.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump is trying to ‘hold people accountable' for Russia hoax: GOP lawmaker
Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., discuss the push from some GOP members to establish a special counsel for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative on 'The Faulkner Focus.'
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tenney gets first challenger for Congress in 2026 -- Democrat Kastenbaum of WNY
Jul. 4—Claudia Tenney has her first declared opponent in her run for reelection to represent New York's 24th Congressional District — Diana K. Kastenbaum, a former manufacturing CEO from Batavia, Genesee County who once sought the Democratic nod for the now-defunct 27th District nearly a decade ago. In an announcement shared on Wednesday, Kastenbaum said she would seek to focus on "kitchen table" issues like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, rural healthcare, veterans services, education and workforce shortages in the district, which stretches from Jefferson County to Niagara Falls, largely following the southern shore of Lake Ontario. "Our rural hospitals and nursing homes depend on Medicaid funding to serve our communities," Kastenbaum said. "Our farmers need workers who are willing to do the essential work of feeding America. Our veterans deserve the services they've earned through their honorable service. These aren't partisan issues — they're neighbor issues." Kastenbaum has retired from running her company, Pinnacle Manufacturing, and currently serves as a trustee on the SUNY Genesee Community College board. Kastenbaum has been slowly rebuilding her political presence in the district, launching a series of town hall events across the district with the group "Concerned Citizens NY-24", a nonpartisan community group that aimed to host community forums across the district after the start of the Trump administration. In an interview Wednesday, Kastenbaum said she started organizing that forum with other politically-minded people in western New York to provide a forum for local residents to discuss their thoughts on federal policies and actions, and to better understand the scope of what was going on. Kastenbaum had invited Tenney to attend the nonpartisan forums, but the Congresswoman did not take her up on the offer, and has not hosted a town hall of her own in the district in months. Kastenbaum said it was her experience with the health care system that pushed her to run — she cared for her father and then her husband, former Seinfeld cast member Hiram Kasten, before they died, and said she found the health care system very difficult to successfully move through. "I thought, if I'm having these problems, other people must be too," she said. Kastenbaum said she wants to pitch a stable rural health care system, and said that Republican actions in Washington are doing the opposite. She pointed to the "One Big Beautiful Bill," President Trump's keystone legislation package that includes major cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that are likely to push thousands of Americans off of the government-sponsored health insurance program. Kastenbaum said that bill is going to rip health coverage away from thousands of NY-24 residents, push regional hospitals into financial ruin and make quality of life worse. "I don't know why Claudia Tenney supports this," she said. "She doesn't see what it's going to do to her constituents. She's never here to hear from them." Kastenbaum said she has experience running in a heavily Republican district like NY-24, referencing her previous campaign in NY-27 back in 2016. In that race, she carried 32.8% of the vote to then-Congressman Chris Collins 67.2%. Kastenbaum said she has seen concerns among area Republicans just as much as from Democrats about the direction the country is taking and the priorities the GOP is pursuing in D.C., and she said she thinks there's bipartisan backlash to what's being done. She said the results of the "One Big Beautiful Bill," which House GOP members were debating throughout the day Wednesday, will give local voters a lot more to be mad about. Kastenbaum has been touring the district to meet with local county Democratic committee chairs, and said she's met all of them. She said there are other candidates planning to announce their campaigns in the coming days, and there's likely to be a primary election for the Democratic party in NY-24 this year. Her advantages, she said, are business acumen, a long history in the district as a native born and raised in Batavia, experience in local politics and a passion to fight. "I decided I had to fight, and the best way to do that is to run," she said. As of Wednesday, Kastenbaum and Tenney are the only two candidates to have filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for the seat — Kastenbaum has not recorded any financial information yet because her campaign is too new, but Tenney reported that she has raised $638,790 since January of this year, and has spent $312,046.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Health care union criticizes Trump spending plan, urges Tenney to vote no
Jun. 30—WATERTOWN — A local health care union is urging U.S. Rep. Claudia L. Tenney to vote no on the president's spending bill, citing concerns of potential cuts to Medicaid. The bill, dubbed by President Donald J. Trump as the "One Big Beautiful Bill," was heavily criticized during a press conference at the Butler Pavilion in Watertown on Monday afternoon. "We're here to tell Claudia Tenney to vote no on the big ugly bill because there is nothing beautiful about this bill," said Mark Spadafore, upstate New York political director for 1199 SEIU. 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East represents more than 450,000 members in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida and Washington, D.C. Spadafore said that the bill would cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. "That's what's at risk today and the effect it's going to have here in Watertown, across the 24th Congressional District, across New York state and the country will be devastating to our health care system," he said. A recent analysis done by the University of North Carolina showed that rural hospitals across the country could be faced with steep cuts, including Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg; Massena Hospital; Clifton-Fine Hospital in Star Lake; Gouverneur Hospital; and Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville. The hospitals would be hurt because rural hospitals often have a significant portion of their patients in Medicaid or Medicare programs that serve poor and elderly people. Mike Richmond, a union member and Oswego County hospital worker, has worries that the potential Medicare and Medicaid cuts could result in staff and care being cut. He also worries that people would have to drive long distances in order to receive care. "If we have to travel that far without our community hospitals, more people are going to be harmed," he said. Richmond had to rely on Medicaid for his son's medicine while he went to school to become a nurse. He said if his son did not have Medicaid, Richmond would not have been able to become a nurse and his son would not be contributing back to the community. "I am resolved to get this message out there to show that there's alternatives. To show that we need Medicaid not to be cut," he said. Politico has reported that Planned Parenthood funding is also at risk of having funding cut. Crystal Collette, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York, called the bill a "direct attack on our health and our freedom" while adding it puts almost 200 health centers at the risk of closing and could block over a million patients from receiving essential care. "The American people do not want Congress to eliminate this essential care and defund Planned Parenthood," she said. 1199 SEIU area Vice President Mary Wilsie said she is extremely concerned about the proposed cuts. "This funding loss threatens the existence of our health care facilities," she said. "We do not deserve to see these cuts, job losses, or facility closures." Advocates of the bill have stated the bill will cut "waste, fraud, and abuse." The president wants the bill on his desk to sign by the Fourth of July, which is Friday.
New York Post
28-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump could pull funds from sanctuary states, cities under House GOP bill
WASHINGTON — A new House Republican bill would give the Trump administration the legislative green light to pull federal welfare funding for illegal immigrants from so-called 'sanctuary' states and localities — if their officials refuse to help with mass deportations or other enforcement, The Post can reveal. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) filed the Law Enforcement Solidarity Act in the House on Monday to condition federal funding for food, housing, health care and legal services on a jurisdiction's coordination with the Department of Homeland Security. 'Law enforcement officers who respond to the emergency call from their fellow officers should be celebrated, not chastised,' Tenney told The Post. 'Yet, Rochester city officials are seeking to penalize the RPD officers who quickly responded to assist ICE during a traffic stop, simply because of Rochester's unlawful sanctuary city policies.' Advertisement 4 A new Republican bill could help President Trump's admin pull federal welfare funding for illegal immigrants from so-called 'sanctuary' states and localities — if their officials refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities. REUTERS 'That's why I'm introducing the Law Enforcement Solidarity Act to make federal funding conditional on allowing local law enforcement to cooperate with federal law enforcement,' she added. 'No law enforcement officer, local or federal, should be abandoned because of reckless policies driven by the Left's political agenda.' The Federal Emergency Management Agency already told New York City officials this month that the US government was cutting $188 million in grants earmarked to deal with the migrant influx. Advertisement In all, the Big Apple is counting on $7.4 billion in federal funds for its fiscal year 2026 spending — roughly 6.4% of its total budget, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimated earlier this year. 4 'Law enforcement officers who respond to the emergency call from their fellow officers should be celebrated, not chastised,' Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) told The Post. Jamie Germano/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Tenney's bill comes ahead of an executive order President Trump will sign Monday afternoon 'to provide a list of sanctuary cities in which local officials are not complying' with the feds, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. A San Francisco federal judge had dealt a blow to the president last week by ruling that earlier executive actions aimed at revoking US taxpayer funding for sanctuary states and cities were unconstitutional. Advertisement Those orders — Protecting the American People Against Invasion and Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders — were found to be 'unconstitutionally vague' and in violation of due process rights as well as the states' rights outlined in the 10th Amendment, US District Judge William Orrick wrote in an order granting a preliminary injunction. 4 The Trump administration has also been battling with New York State and Chicago over their sanctuary policies in federal court. DEA The cities of San Francisco; Sacramento; Portland, Ore.; Santa Fe; Seattle; and New Haven, Conn., as well as Minnesota's Twin Cities, were all listed as plaintiffs. The Trump administration has already been battling with New York State and Chicago over their sanctuary policies in federal court. Advertisement Tenney's bill will also require Attorney General Pam Bondi to submit annual reports to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees listing each jurisdiction that fails to cooperate with the feds on immigration enforcement. 4 Tenney's bill will also require Attorney General Pam Bondi to submit annual reports to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees listing each jurisdiction that fails to cooperate with the feds on immigration enforcement. REUTERS Long Island GOP Rep. Nick LaLota ushered a bill last year through the House that would have pulled all federal aid funding for sanctuary jurisdictions — but it never was taken up in the Democrat-controlled Senate. In fiscal year 2024, New York City spent $3.75 billion on migrant welfare services, according to previous disclosures by City Comptroller Brad Lander's office, $237.3 million of which came from federal funding. White House border czar Tom Homan revealed Monday that around 139,000 illegal immigrants have been deported since Trump returned to office Jan. 20.
