Breaking AI & Tech News Analyzed

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States and president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, was detained by nearly a dozen US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday in Milwaukee.His attorneys claim that the detention is based on unsubstantiated grounds that he poses a foreign policy threat, which they argue has no merit. They believe Sarsour was targeted for speaking out against Israel and due to a conviction as a minor by Israeli military courts.“Our government should not be doing the bidding of a foreign government,” said attorney Munjed Ahmad, suggesting that the detention aims to stifle discourse on the Palestinian narrative. Sarsour, 53, has no criminal record in the US and has been a green card holder for years.The arrest has prompted outcry from local officials, including Milwaukee’s mayor, Cavalier Johnson, who called it “an outrage.” Sarsour is being held at a county jail outside Indianapolis, and his attorneys have filed a petition seeking his release.

The recent decision by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to deny loans to small business owners who are not US citizens has raised concerns about the politicization of the agency. Kelly Loeffler, the new administrator of the SBA, announced that the agency would no longer approve loans to small business owners unless they are US citizens, effectively excluding legal immigrants with green cards and full residency from accessing loans.This move has been criticized for being a political decision that harms small businesses and the economy. The SBA's mission is to support small businesses, which are the backbone of the US economy. By denying loans to certain entrepreneurs, the agency is limiting access to capital and hindering the growth of small businesses that could benefit their communities and the country at large.The decision is also seen as a reaction against the Biden administration's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. Under Biden, the SBA had often featured diverse groups of business owners in its marketing materials, but this new policy seems to be tailoring the message to serve the Trump administration's political agenda.Supporting small businesses should not be a controversial position, and most of the time it is not. However, the SBA's politicization has made it a propaganda tool for the party in power, rather than a neutral agency serving the interests of small businesses.To address this issue, some suggest taking the SBA out of the government and spinning it off into a separate entity, similar to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership or the MITRE Corporation. This entity would be funded by both the government and private industry and would be required to report to Congress through its existing small business committees.The goal of this new entity would be to coordinate government loan guarantees, assist with federal funding, and provide training, counseling, and support to small businesses. This would help to insulate the agency from political cycles and ensure that it serves the interests of small businesses, rather than the interests of the party in power.