At a federal immigration court in El Paso asylum seekers wait in limbo as a result of Trump’s policies
Judge Sunita Mahtabfar, presiding over the El Paso immigration court in south-west Texas, kicked off the hearing by asking the 16 asylum seekers a question.
“Is anyone here afraid to return to Mexico?” she said.
Continue reading...Daily Stormer publisher incited his readers to contact Tanya Gersh, who received threatening emails, texts and voicemails
The publisher of a neo-Nazi website, who organized a “troll storm” to target a Jewish woman and her family with months of abusive messages, should have to pay more than $14m in damages and remove all posts that encouraged his readers to contact her, a US judge has recommended.
The US magistrate judge called the harassment campaign, launched by the Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin a month before Donald Trump’s inauguration, “egregious and reprehensible”. Anglin targeted Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in Whitefish, Montana, a town where the prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer and his family have sometimes lived.
Continue reading...Fifty years after Stonewall, photographs Kay Tobin Lahusen and Diana Davies pin the zeitgeist to the page
Forty-nine years ago, on the first anniversary of the riots outside the Stonewall Inn, thousands of “young men and women homosexuals” from all over the north-east marched from Greenwich Village to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. As Lacey Fosburgh put it on the front page of the New York Times, they proclaimed “the new strength and pride of the gay people”.
Related: We've been to a marvelous party: when gay Harlem met queer Britain
Continue reading...Court expected to hear arguments late this year, with a decision on Dreamers likely to come before 2020 election
The supreme court will review the constitutionality of an Obama-era program allowing undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children to get temporary deportation relief and work permits.
Trump ended the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), but the decision was challenged in several lawsuits. The program protected about 700,000 people known as Dreamers.
Continue reading...Justice says move ‘imperils system of government’ as court blocks 2020 census citizenship question for now in blow to Trump
The big question around the citizenship/census ruling: will the Trump administration have the time / organization to mount a new effort to put the question in place before 2020 Census season (and it’s unclear just when the cutoff here is)?:
This seems like the same “unring the bell” logic of the Muslim ban decision. “Come back and lie to us about your motives more convincingly, please.” https://t.co/LjgGeyc6Xx
More reactions:
This ruling on gerrymandering is exactly why it is not enough to just win the next election. The Supreme Court is helping Republicans *rig* the elections. Democrats need a *proactive* plan to confront the partisan capture of the Court.
On the census, the Trump administration’s lies went so far that even this Supreme Court had to say no. If this leads to a result with no citizenship question, that would be a very welcome outcome, and it would also preserve the status quo. This should have been an easy case, and in the end, it was.
But Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling that no federal court can ever consider claims of extreme and unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering is truly appalling for the long term health of our democracy. It’s a judicial green light for egregious partisanship, a permission slip for politicians to entrench themselves without fear of judicial intervention.
This is a victory for all New Yorkers who refuse to be undercounted, discriminated against, or driven into the shadows. The Trump administration must not be allowed to weaponize the census in its war on immigrants, people of color, and the poor. From the very beginning, the administration has hoped to add a citizenship question in order to undercount, marginalize, and limit the political power of immigrant communities. The justices saw through the Trump administration’s absurd excuses for the addition of the question. We will do everything we can with our partners to ensure that all New Yorkers are counted.”
Continue reading...Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Flowers’ trial record showed ‘relentless effort’ by prosecutor to rid jury of black individuals
The supreme court has thrown out the murder conviction and death sentence of a black man in Mississippi because of a prosecutor’s efforts to keep African Americans off the jury.
The justices ruled 7-2 that the removal of black prospective jurors had deprived Curtis Flowers of a fair trial.
Continue reading...As Donald Trump opened fire on Justin Amash, the Michigan representative who became the first Republican in Congress say he had engaged in “impeachable conduct”, Mitt Romney declined to join the fight.
Related: Justin Amash becomes first Republican to back Trump impeachment
Continue reading...Evangelical backing for a thrice-married celebrity is not as odd as it seems: on abortion, the supreme court and more, the president keeps delivering
After bowing his head in prayer, Donald Trump addressed faith leaders in the sunshine of the White House rose garden.
Related: Trump wants Barr to consider investigating Biden – Giuliani
Continue reading...The actor Alyssa Milano ignited a social media storm with a call for women to join her in a sex strike, to protest against strict abortion laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures.
Related: Abortion: judge strikes down Kentucky restriction but governor to appeal
Continue reading...Unofficial results show citizen initiative on psilocybin passed, following path of decriminalized cannabis
Voters on Tuesday made Denver the first US city to in effect decriminalize psilocybin – the psychoactive substance in “magic mushrooms” – adding a new chapter to the city’s role in shaping wider drug policy.
The citizen initiative on the ballot followed the same tack taken by marijuana activists to decriminalize pot possession in 2005 in the city. That move was followed by statewide legalization in 2012. A number of other states have since broadly allowed marijuana sales and use by adults.
Continue reading...Defamation lawsuit alleges that Smollett’s lawyer and firm repeatedly assert that the brothers carried out a real, bigoted attack on actor
Two brothers who say they helped Jussie Smollett stage a racist and homophobic attack against himself filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Empire actor’s attorneys, alleging that they repeatedly asserted publicly that the brothers carried out a real, bigoted attack on Smollett despite knowing that was not true.
A lawyer for Olabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the brothers. It names the well-known defense attorney Mark Geragos and his law firm as defendants.
Continue reading...Court rules 5-4 that authorities can detain immigrants awaiting deportation anytime after they have completed prison terms
The US supreme court on Tuesday endorsed US government authority to detain immigrants awaiting deportation at any time – potentially even years – after they have completed prison terms for criminal convictions, handing Donald Trump a victory as he pursues hardline immigration policies.
The court ruled 5-4, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could pick up such immigrants and place them into indefinite detention at any time, not just immediately after they finish their prison sentences.
Continue reading...High court justices issued 4-3 ruling over how Remington marketed the Bushmaster military-style rifle used in the shooting
The Connecticut supreme court has dealt a blow to gun manufacturers by ruling that victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting could go to trial against Remington Arms, on the grounds that the gun company irresponsibly marketed the gun used in the shooting to high-risk individuals.
“The families are grateful that our state’s supreme court has rejected the gun industry’s bid for complete immunity, not only from the consequences of their reckless conduct but also from the truth-seeking discovery process,” Josh Koskoff, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families, said.
Continue reading...Scheme helped wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown and Stanford
US federal prosecutors have charged the Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, along with almost 50 other people, over a $25m scheme to help wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
Huffman appeared in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon, where a magistrate judge said she could be released on a $250,000 bond. The judge ordered the Desperate Housewives star to restrict her travel to the continental United States. Huffman’s husband, the actor William H Macy, attended his wife’s initial court appearance. He has not been charged and authorities have not said why.
Continue reading...Senate Republicans have confirmed 89 Trump-nominated judges to serve at all levels of the federal court system
Many Americans watching the turmoil in US institutions and political norms are yearning for the day when Donald Trump is no longer president. But whether he leaves after 2020 or 2024, Trump has built a legacy in one vital area that can be expected to stand for decades, long after his Twitter feed has fallen silent, analysts across the political spectrum agree.
That legacy comprises the 89 judges, and rapidly counting, that Trump has nominated, and Senate Republicans have confirmed, to serve at all levels of the federal court system. They are taking up posts from the district courts (53 Trump nominees confirmed out of 677 total) to the appellate courts (34 out of 179) to the US supreme court (two out of nine). Put together they form a kind of conservative judicial revolution that could impact all aspects of American life.
Continue reading...Though Trump himself suggested there is no real emergency, courts are unlikely to second-guess a presidents’ broad leeway
Many legal analysts who watched Donald Trump declare a national emergency over immigration on Friday thought the president had weak legal grounds for doing so. In particular, many thought Trump hurt his own case by admitting, right there in the White House Rose Garden: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”
“This quote should be the first sentence of the first paragraph of every complaint filed this afternoon,” tweeted George Conway, a top Washington lawyer and the husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway.
Continue reading...Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro ‘was giving us his orders’
The wife of the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán played a key role in his infamous 2015 escape from prison through a tunnel dug into the shower of his cell, one of Guzmán’s top lieutenants told a court in New York.
Dámaso López Núñez told the jury at Guzmán’s trial that Emma Coronel Aispuro helped her husband trade messages with his sons and others who coordinated the breakout at Altiplano prison in central Mexico.
Continue reading...Court spokeswoman says Ginsburg, 85, is working from home as she recuperates from cancer surgery last month
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on Monday missing supreme court arguments for the first time in more than 25 years, as she recuperates from cancer surgery last month, the court said.
Ginsburg was not on the bench as the court met to hear arguments. It was not clear when she would return to the court, which will hear more cases on Tuesday and Wednesday and again next week.
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