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(WASHINGTON) — A jobs report scheduled to be released on Friday will mark the final piece of major economic data before Election Day.

Hiring data typically provides a clear-eyed snapshot of the nation’s labor market, but the latest report could prove one of the murkiest in recent memory.

Last month, two hurricanes and a major labor strike at Boeing may have disrupted the survey of employers that the government uses to estimate the nation’s hiring.

Economists expect the U.S. to have added 90,000 jobs in October. That figure would mark a sharp slowdown from 254,000 jobs added in September, but the new report is widely expected to be an undercount due to the one-off disturbances last month.

“Workers who weren’t paid during the survey period due to work disruptions won’t be counted as employed, and workers and businesses may be too busy dealing with the aftermath of the storms to respond to surveys,” Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale University and former director of economic research at Indeed, told ABC News in a statement.

The unemployment rate is expected to have ticked up to 4.2% in October from 4.1% in September.

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane on Oct. 9. It ultimately left millions without power and much of the state’s gas stations without fuel. In late September, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, prompting recovery efforts that have continued for weeks afterward.

Additionally, roughly 33,000 Boeing workers walked off the job in mid-September, an action that’s expected to manifest as missing jobs for the first time on the October report.

In all, the combination of hurricanes and work stoppages is estimated to have pushed the level of hiring 50,000 jobs lower than where it otherwise would have stood, Bank of America Global Research said in a note to clients this week.

“This probably weighed on payrolls across the board, especially leisure and hospitality,” Bank of America Global Research said, pointing to Hurricane Milton. “There was also likely a minor drag from Helene,” the bank added.

The hiring data is set to arrive at the end of a week in which new releases showed an economy growing at a robust pace while inflation returns to normal levels.

U.S. GDP grew at a 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data on Wednesday showed. That figure fell slightly below economists’ expectations, but demonstrated brisk growth that was propelled by resilient consumer spending.

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge showed that prices rose 2.1% over the year ending in September. Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, though it remains slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%.

The jobs report is set to arrive four days before Election Day. It also marks the last piece of significant economic data before the Fed announces its next interest rate decision on Nov. 7.

The Fed is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are being poured into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite these issues being among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the intensified campaign will sow fear and hate against a group that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population, per an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — and which already experiences high rates of discrimination and violence.

“After the election, trans Americans will have to deal with the dangerous fallout from the shameful lies and misinformation that far too many political candidates are intentionally spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In the ads, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has said he will end transgender care in prisons and jails, and restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports, and more.

In interviews, Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as being part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — has said she will follow the law when it comes to transgender care and has expressed support for the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the issues and how each candidate expects to legislate transgender policies.

Claim about ‘transgender operations’ in prisons, jails

Trump’s campaign has seized on Harris’ past comments affirming her support for transgender inmates to receive care.

In 2019, she did support “providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

The Harris campaign, however, hit back against recent criticism from Trump, noting that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration had a policy in place to allow incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care if it’s required based on an individual assessment of needs. BOP documents confirm the policy.

“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Harris during an interview in October.

“I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “You’re probably familiar with now, it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, of the hundreds of incarcerated transgender people in BOP custody each year, no one had received gender-affirming surgery until the first instance in 2023.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates have ever obtained surgeries.

Claims of transgender ‘operations’ for children at schools

Trump has often depicted hypothetical or unfounded scenarios about children getting an “operation” at school without parental permission while on the campaign trail. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any proof, that schools purportedly secretly send students for surgeries, saying: “There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is needed for any form of gender-affirming care given to minors, including puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found — a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis.

Physicians say they work with patients and their parents to build a customized and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for trans patients, meaning not every patient will receive any or every type of care. They also said receiving this care is typically a lengthy process.

Numerous medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the CDC — have said access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender-diverse people.

Harris, when asked in October during an NBC News interview about whether transgender Americans deserve to have access to gender-affirming care, said she would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”

Additionally, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as Minnesota governor protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state in March 2023.

Claims about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker, or Mark William Calaway, Trump also pushed false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif was the target of controversy after reports falsely surfaced claiming Khelif is a transgender woman; she is not and was assigned female at birth, according to the International Olympic Committee.

Carini abandoned the Olympics bout after only 46 seconds, further sparking false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC spoke out about the misinformation on Khelif’s gender and sex.

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, has a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced a San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming a trans athlete on San Jose State’s team — as he repeatedly misgendered her — injured other female players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.

“They had the one guy on the one team, and he was so high in the air, and he smashed that ball, you know, you don’t see that, and this ball came at her at a speed that he’s, you know, she’s never seen — get really whacked her. But other volleyball players were hurt,” Trump said.

Trump has additionally vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” in many of his stump speeches, making it a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that trans women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading — with sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimating to CNN that trans women make up less than 40 athletes of the 500,000 in the NCAA.

For more insight into the candidates’ LGBTQ policy history, read here.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Deep distrust in the American election system among Republican voters has inspired a wave of general election poll watchers purporting to protect against fraud in battleground states, where some officials fear a turn toward vigilantism before and on Nov. 5.

“Their presence alone is kind of a deterrent, because everybody knows somebody is watching,” said Jeff Fuller, a retired Army Special Forces officer, self-described 2020 election denier, and organizer of a GOP poll watching effort in Prince William County, Virginia.

Part of American elections for generations, poll watchers are volunteers appointed by both major parties to observe how ballots are cast, handled, and counted. They report alleged irregularities to party lawyers for possible further investigation.

“Poll watchers can provide transparency. They can raise issues that poll workers might not see as they deal with all sorts of other busy jobs on Election Day,” said Andrew Garber, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan election watchdog. “The concern becomes when poll watchers go in either to fulfill partisan goals or to spread disinformation.”

Several veteran election administrators called the 2024 Republican effort “very significant,” if not unprecedented, for its size and scope.

“We’ve got over 175,000 volunteers who have signed up, registered, or are going through trainings,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told ABC News Live last month of the party’s team of poll watchers, poll workers and lawyers.

Democrats have assembled a core legal team to counter the GOP operation and will also have volunteer poll watchers deployed in key states, though the party has not provided a total number.

Fuller described what he trains poll watchers to look out for.

“Is the voter, when he comes in, is he asked his name and address? Does he give his name and address? Can the poll watcher hear that and observe that dialogue? A lot of it is common sense,” he said. “If you see something that doesn’t make sense. You can ask a question about it.”

Fuller concedes he has seen “no” evidence of election fraud in Virginia so far.

In recent elections, a small but growing number of poll watchers have been accused of disruptive behavior and intimidation tactics leading some state election officials to fear this year could be worse.

In 2022, an armed poll watcher in Texas trailed election officials headed to count ballots. Others in Arizona, wearing masks, maintained an intimidating presence outside ballot drop boxes. Election staff in Wayne County, North Carolina, accused poll watchers of blocking access to voting machines and raising constant objections in an effort to disrupt the process.

“We all want our elections to be as secure as possible, but over the last couple of elections we’ve seen a growing trend of poll watchers spreading disinformation, of leaving the polling place and announcing that they witnessed fraud that didn’t really exist,” said Garber.

“There’s certainly concern about this election as well, that there are poll watchers who are going in and looking to make up claims about fraud, which can then be weaponized by losing candidates to say that there were problems in the election,” he said.

Poll watching recruitment efforts have tapped into lingering concern among conservative voters about alleged widespread fraud during the 2020 election — claims that have gone unsubstantiated but remain believed.

Thirty-three percent of registered voters — including 66 percent of Trump’s supporters — endorse Trump’s false claims that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win in 2020, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Just 6% of Vice President Kamala Harris supporters say they lack confidence that votes will be accurately counted in 2024, the poll found. Among Trump supporters it’s 54%.

“They’ve seen too many things that can’t be explained — data can’t be reconciled, other observations — and so they want to make a difference now,” said Mark Flaherty, co-founder of Citizens for New Jersey Election Integrity, a grassroots group that mobilizes conservative election volunteers. “They are no longer taking their elections for granted.

At a gathering of the New Jersey group over the summer, several participants explained why they felt compelled to volunteer to watch the polls or work as an official polling place staffer. “By and large, the elections are anything but transparent, reliable, or bulletproof,” said one man. Added another: “illegal immigrants — we need to prevent them from voting.”

Many veteran nonpartisan state election officials have said they fear an escalation of poll watcher tactics and have strategized on how to resolve confrontations which may arise.

“To come in with rhetoric — grand, immediate accusations — does not always go well because people are immediately saying you’re doing something illegal, you’re doing something fraudulent, and that just amplifies turns on from low temperature to boiling rapidly,” said Isaac Cramer, executive director of the Charleston County, South Carolina, Board of Voter Registration and Elections.

“The past couple of years, every election official has started to think about threats to them, their family, their election workers, and their staff,” said Kristie Burr, director of the Oconee County, South Carolina, Board of Elections. “It adds pressure to our job.”

Tina Barton, a Republican former election official from Michigan, received death threats after the state’s 2020 vote count did not favor Trump. She now travels the country to coach other officials on how to prepare.

“It impacts you forever,” Barton told ABC News in an interview. “You change the way you do things, how you talk about things, what you share on social media, how you arm your house, and arm yourself.”

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News warns that “threat actors” are “likely” to push unsubstantiated claims of election fraud “to drive 2024 general election-related violence” and notes that at least 12 individuals were sentenced “in relation to violent threats” directed at election officials or volunteers in 2020 and 2022.

Jeff Fuller says he doesn’t condone violence, but he insists an army of poll watchers looking over their shoulder is the only way to build back trust.

“I’m a partisan Republican, but I don’t buy threatening anybody or doing anything that is going to cause anybody to fear for their life,” Fuller said.

As for fears of vigilantism by some of the GOP’s army of 175,000 poll-watching volunteers, Fuller says he can understand the sentiment, but “It’s not true. It’s not true.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has vowed, if he’s elected, to conduct a large-scale deportation operation that some immigration and military experts agree is theoretically possible but also problematic, and could cost tens — even hundreds — of billions a year.

In FY 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducted 170,590 administrative arrests, representing a 19.5% increase over the previous year, and more than any year of the Trump presidency.

Should he win a second term, Trump has promised to exponentially increase this work and suggested deporting all of the estimated 11 million people living in this country without legal immigration status.

His team, at various points, has suggested starting with “criminals,” though they have provided few specifics about who would be prioritized.

One cost estimate: $88B – $315B a year

A new report from the American Immigration Council, an immigration rights research and policy firm, estimates that to deport even one million undocumented immigrants a year would cost over $88 billion dollars annually, for a total of $967.9 billion over more than ten years.

The report acknowledges there are significant cost variables depending on how such an operation would be conducted and says its estimate does not take into account the loss of tax revenue from workers nor the bigger economic loss if people self-deport and American businesses lose labor.

A one-time effort to deport even more people in one year annually could cost around $315 billion, the report estimates, including about $167 billion to detain immigrants en masse.

The two largest costs, according to the group, would be hiring additional personal to carry out deportation raids and constructing and staffing mass detention centers. “There would be no way to accomplish this mission without mass detention as an interim step,” the report reads.

Trump campaign official agree one of the biggest logistical hurdles in any mass deportation effort would be constructing and staffing new detention centers as an interim solution.

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, has repeatedly said that should Trump win the White House, his team plans to construct facilities to hold between 50,000 – 70,000 people. By comparison, the entire U.S. prison and jail population in 2022, comprising every person held in local, county, state, and federal prisons and jails, is currently 1.9 million people.

The American Immigration Council report estimates that to deport one million immigrants a year would require the United States to “build and maintain 24 times more ICE detention capacity than currently exists.”

There are currently an estimated 1.1 million undocumented immigrants in the country who have received “final orders of removal.” Those individuals, in theory, could be removed immediately by ICE agents, but because of limited resources ICE agents have instead focused lately on those people who have recently arrived or who have dangerous crimes

“I think it is possible that they could execute on this. The human resources would be the hardest for them to overcome. They would have to pull ICE agents from the border if they want to go into cities,” Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden’s top migration adviser in the National Security Council, told ABC News.

ICE agents currently help Customs and Border Patrol agents on the border, carrying out expedited deportations of new arrivals who have recently crossed into the country illegally and provide logistical support to the Department of Homeland Security.

A new mandate to round up and deport individuals who have been living in the country for some time could mark a significant change for the law enforcement agency.

The American Immigration Council report estimates that to carry out even one million deportations a year, ICE would need to hire around 30,000 new officers, “instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government,” the report reads.

Trump campaign: Deportation cost less than migrant costs

The Trump campaign has argued the cost of deportation “pales in comparison” to other costs associated housing and providing social services to recent migrants. “Kamala’s border invasion is unsustainable and is already tearing apart the fabric of our society. Mass deportations of illegal immigrant criminals, and restoring an orderly immigration system, are the only way to solve this crisis,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

Trump has promised to mobilize and federalize National Guard units to help with the deportation effort, which would likely be a first for the military.

Under U.S. law, military units are barred from engaging in domestic law enforcement, although Trump has proposed invoking the Insurrection Act, a sweeping law, that could give him broader powers to direct National Guard units as he sees fit.

“We don’t like uniform military in our domestic affairs at all,” William Banks, professor at Syracuse University and Founding Director of the Institute on National Security and Counter Terrorism, told ABC News in a phone interview. “The default is always have the civilians do it. The cops, the state police, the city police, the sheriffs,” he went on.

Using the military for domestic law enforcement would be a fundamental shift, one which Banks argues too few Americans have considered or grappled with.

“It would turn out whole society upside down … all these arguments about him being an autocrat or dictator, it is not a stretch,” he said. For example, uniformed military officers are not trained in law enforcement and if they were asked to conduct civilian arrests there could be significant civil liberties conflicts and violations.

In order to, target and deport immigrants whose have not received “final orders of removal” but whose cases are still pending, Trump has discussed using another rare legal maneuver to himself broad authority to target and detain immigrants without a hearing, specifically invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law last used during World War II to detain Japanese Americans.

Trump would also need other nations to accept deported individuals and allow deportation flights to land back on their soil.

Katie Tobin, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as President Joe Biden’s top migration adviser on the National Security Council, told ABC News, “Last time the Trump administration did not hesitate to threaten punitive action to countries that didn’t cooperate with them on immigration, but there are some practical issues there in terms of just how many flights a country like Guatemala or Colombia can accept per week.”

There would likely be less tangible and more indirect costs of a mass deportation effort as well. Inevitably there would be ripple effects throughout the economy. In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes, according to the report, and “undocumented immigrants also contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare.”

The human toll

Experts also predict that if a future Trump administration were to follow through with some large, initial and highly visible deportation operation, a significant number of individuals and families would likely choose to self-deport in order to avoid family separations or having to spend time in a military-style detention center.

The authors of the American Immigration Council report argue that the effect of a mass deportation program, as described by Trump and his advisers, would “almost certainly threaten the well-being” of even those immigrants with lawful status in the United States and “even, potentially, naturalized U.S. citizens and their communities.”

“They would live under the shadow of weaponized enforcement as the U.S. went after their neighbors, and, as social scientists found under the Trump administration, would be prone to worry they and their children might be next,” the report says.

In recent interviews and conversations with reporters, Trump’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance has dodged the question of whether a future Trump administration would separate families during a new deportation effort or in detention centers along the border.

“If a guy commits gun violence and is taken to prison, that’s family separation, which, of course, is tragic for the children, but you’ve got to prosecute criminals, and you have to enforce the law,” Vance told reporters in September when visiting the border.

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