September, 22 2008, 01:21pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Maria Archuleta, ACLU national, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Dotty Griffith, ACLU of Texas, (512) 478-7300 x 106; dgriffith@aclutx.org
Estuardo Rodriguez, MALDEF, (202) 631-2892
Farmers Branch, Texas Anti-Immigrant Ordinance Is Blocked While Challenge Continues
DALLAS
City officials in Farmers Branch, Texas today agreed not to fight a request from residents' to block the city's latest anti-immigrant ordinance from taking effect while a legal challenge continues. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a request in federal court on the residents' behalf for a preliminary injunction blocking the ordinance. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is expected to enter the injunction today.
The challenged ordinance, Ordinance 2952, is the city's third attempt at restricting residency based on immigration status. It would require all adults in the city who live in rental housing to register with the city and provide citizenship and immigration information in order to obtain a so-called "residential occupancy license." Under the ordinance, landlords would have to evict all residents who the city deems "not lawfully present in the United States," including people living with U.S. citizen children, spouses and parents. The civil rights groups charge that the ordinance violates the U.S. Constitution, federal and state statutes and is discriminatory.
At an earlier hearing on Friday, September 12, U.S. District Court Judge Jane J. Boyle temporarily blocked the ordinance.
"The city saw which way the wind was blowing. It's highly unlikely that the court will uphold this discriminatory law and the city decided to give up this part of their losing battle," said Nina Perales, Southwest Regional Counsel for MALDEF. "We are confident that the order blocking the ordinance will be made permanent should this case proceed to trial. Immigration reform is a federal responsibility and local anti-immigrant ordinances only hurt city economies and community relations."
The city's anti-immigrant ordinances have been defeated over and over again in the courts. The city withdrew its first ordinance in the face of multiple lawsuits by business and civil rights groups. The second ordinance was temporarily, preliminarily and then permanently blocked by U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay of the Northern District of Texas. When it became clear that the second ordinance was doomed, the city passed Ordinance 2952, which Judge Lindsay observed was "yet another attempt to circumvent the court's prior rulings and further an agenda that runs afoul of the United States Constitution." Judge Boyle's September 12 ruling was the fourth federal court order to block the city's anti-immigrant ordinances, and today's preliminary injunction is the fifth.
"The politicians who support this ordinance and their advisors from national anti-immigrant organizations seem to regard this as some sort of game, even though the laws they have invented are terribly serious and have real consequences for the city and its residents. But it's time for them to realize that they've long since struck out," said Omar Jadwat, staff attorney at the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.
"Every court in the country that has reviewed these local anti-immigrant housing ordinances has put a stop to them," said Lisa Graybill, Legal Director of the ACLU of Texas. "Farmers Branch has taken the curious approach of recreating their ordinance to be even more intrusive and offensive, to the point of subjecting everyone to an intrusive, Big Brother-like licensing regime. The city has lost sight not only of the law, but of common sense, in this case."
Attorneys who are working on the case include Jadwat, Lucas Guttentag, Jennifer Chang Newell and Farrin Anello of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Graybill of the ACLU of Texas; Perales and Marisol L. Perez of MALDEF; and David Broiles.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Police Say Luigi Mangione, Suspected Killer of Insurance CEO, Had 'Ill Will Toward Corporate America'
Mangione, who was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania five days after UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in Manhattan, was reportedly in possession of an anti-corporate manifesto.
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This is a breaking news story... Please check back later for possible updates.
Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man arrested in Pennsylvania Monday on gun charges and is suspected of last week's assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson—was carrying a manifesto condemning insurance industry greed, police said after his apprehension.
Mangione, a Maryland native who according to his social media profiles has a master's degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, was apprehended after being recognized in a MacDonald's in Altoona after an employee recognized him,
The New York Timesreported.
New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione was in possession of a 9mm handgun—possibly a ghost gun made with numerous parts or a 3-D printer—the type used to kill Thompson, as well as a silencer and what she described as an anti-corporate manifesto.
"It does seem he has some ill will toward corporate America," Kenny said.
According toCNN, Mangione wrote in the document that he acted alone and was "self-funded."
"I do apologize for any strife or trauma," the manifesto stated, "but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming."
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch claimed that Mangione was also carrying a fake New Jersey ID matching the one the suspected killed used to check into a New York City hostel 10 days before Thomspon was gunned down in broad daylight in Manhattan with a silencer-equipped gun firing 9mm bullets.
Three bullet casings were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose"—a phrase commonly used by critics to describe insurance industry tactics to avoid paying patient claims. UnitedHealth, the nation's biggest private insurer, is
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"We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff," said the Gaza Ministry of Health.
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The death toll from Israel's 14-month assault on the Gaza Strip hit at least 44,758 on Monday, with 50 people killed in the past 24 hours alone, as Israeli forces bombed refugee camps, a flour distribution line, and a hospital, according to reporters and officials in the Palestinian enclave.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said a bombing at the Indonesian Hospital north of Gaza City wounded six patients—who are now among more than 106,000 Palestinians injured since Israel began its retaliation for last year's Hamas-led attack.
"We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff," the ministry said in a statement reported by The Associated Press—which noted that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed Sunday evening it was unaware of any attack on the hospital "in the last three to four hours."
A nurse shared footage from the hospital with Drop Site News, which circulated the material on social media:
According toAl Jazeera, "Overnight, an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah also killed 10 people while they had lined up to buy flour."
Israel, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, has been accused of starving Gaza's 2.3 million residents by refusing to allow enough humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Reporting from central Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said that at least three people were killed in a Monday morning attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north that Israeli bombing and the ongoing blockade have "turned into a graveyard."
The victims "were trying to leave their home in search of food in the vicinity of their neighborhood when they were targeted by a drone," the journalist said. "They were killed right away. Their bodies are still in the street and nobody has the ability to get to the bombed site and remove the bodies from the street."
The IDF announced that three soldiers were killed and 12 others were wounded Monday in fighting in Jabalia.
Mahmoud, the journalist, also said Monday that bodies were piling up outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli bombing at the Bureij refugee camp.
"The agony keeps on unfolding here at al-Aqsa Hospital, where survivors and relatives showed up early this morning to collect the bodies from the morgue of the hospital," he said. "At some point, the morgue of the hospital was packed with the bodies and there was not enough room for more bodies."
Citing the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Middle East Eyereported that "two children lost their lives, and others were injured on Monday, during Israeli shelling of al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip."
The updates followed a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya leaving Cairo Sunday evening after meeting with Egypt's general intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, to discuss a potential cease-fire in Gaza.
Israeli media reported Sunday that unnamed political sources claimed Hamas and Israel are close to reaching a "small" deal that would involve a two-month cease-fire; the release of prisoners who are elderly, women, wounded, and sick; and the IDF's withdrawal from parts of Gaza.
Neither Hamas nor mediators Egypt and Qatar have commented on the reporting—which came over a week into an Israeli cease-fire with the Lebanese group Hezbollah that Israel has repeatedly violated since it took effect late last month.
In neighboring Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed over the weekend as he fled and rebels took control of the capital. Israel seized more of the country's Golan Heights, which it has illegally occupied for decades, and the United States—which arms the IDF—launched airstrikes on over 75 Islamic State targets in Syria.
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US Bombs Over 75 Targets in Syria After Assad Falls
"The Western press are waxing lyrical about the new Syria being born—but not a word on the U.S. and Israeli bombs falling from the sky," said Yanis Varoufakis.
Dec 09, 2024
U.S. military forces launched dozens of airstrikes on more than 75 Islamic State targets in Syria on Sunday after the fall of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid ongoing Israeli and Turkish attacks on the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warplanes including B-52 bombers, F-15 fighters, and A-10 ground attack aircraft "conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria."
CENTCOM called the strikes "part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria."
The U.S., "together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities even during this dynamic period in Syria," CENTCOM added.
"The Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism."
Responding Monday to the latest attacks on Syria by U.S. forces, Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the peace group CodePink, told Common Dreams: "We condemn the U.S. airstrikes in Syria. The U.S. has sowed chaos in Syria and the entire region for years and the Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism."
U.S. and coalition forces have killed and maimed at least tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations as part of the anti-ISIS campaign and wider so-called War on Terror.
Commenting on the dearth of coverage of the strikes by the corporate media, prominent Greek leftist Yanis Varoufakis said on social media that "the Western press are waxing lyrical about the new Syria being born—but not a word on the U.S. and Israeli bombs falling from the sky."
"Is there no bottom to the moral void of the Western press?" he added.
Sunday's U.S. strikes came as al-Assad and relatives fled to Russia—where they have been granted asylum—amid the fall of the capital, Damascus, to rebel forces.
Also on Sunday, Israeli forces seized more territory in Syria's Golan Heights and ordered residents of five villages to "stay home and not go out until further notice" if they want to remain safe. Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has unlawfully occupied it ever since. In 1981, Israel illegally annexed the occupied lands.
"We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border," right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—said in a video posted on social media.
Numerous Israelis celebrated the seizure on social media, while others cautioned against boasting about what is almost certainly an illegal conquest.
Meanwhile in northern Syria, Turkish airstrikes in support of Syrian National Army rebels—who are battling U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters in and around the Kurdish-controlled city of Manbij—reportedly killed numerous civilians along with dozens of militants.
In what it called a "horrific massacre," the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that 11 civilians from the same family, including women and six children, were killed in a Turkish drone strike on the SDF-controlled village of Al-Mustariha in northern Raqqa Governate.
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