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Lesley Gill, 615-343-6120;
Joanne Rappaport, (202) 537-1382;
Monica Gonzalez (Georgetown student), (914) 661-2643
Students are
delivering an open letter to Georgetown University President John J.
DeGioia today, signed by over 150 scholars, urging the university to
reconsider its appointment of former president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe
as a visiting scholar.
Students are
delivering an open letter to Georgetown University President John J.
DeGioia today, signed by over 150 scholars, urging the university to
reconsider its appointment of former president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe
as a visiting scholar. Signed by a number of Georgetown professors,
leading scholars on Colombia, and many others, the letter objects to
Uribe's ties to paramilitary groups, the "false positives" scandal (in
which members of the Colombian military killed civilians and dressed
the bodies in the uniforms of guerrillas), corruption and human rights
violations in his administration, manipulation of the judiciary, and a
notorious wiretapping scandal, among other concerns.
"Given the human rights scandals associated with Alvaro Uribe's
administration, and the ties between his administration and illegal
paramilitary groups, it is disturbing that Georgetown University has
chosen to host him this year," said Lesley Gill, Professor and Chair of
Anthropology at Vanderbilt University.
Signers of the letter include Joanne Rappaport, a Colombia expert and
Professor of Anthropology and Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown
University; Greg Grandin, Professor of History at New York University
and author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist book Fordlandia; Yale
University professor Gilbert M. Joseph; and Father Ray Kemp, Senior
Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown, among many
others.
The full text of the letter follows:
_______________________________________________________________________
John J. DeGioia
President
Georgetown University
September 27, 2010
Dear Sir,
Concerning former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's appointment at
Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service as "Distinguished Scholar
in the Practice of Global Leadership," we would like to signal our
agreement with the basic thrust of the open letter Father Javier
Giraldo Moreno, S.J., wrote to peace activist Father John Dear, S.J.,
on September 6, 2010, and add our support for Father Dear's efforts to
have Mr. Uribe removed from his post.
We reproduce the text of the letter from Father Giraldo to Father Dear:
Dear John,
I send you fraternal, loving greetings.
I write to you with great concern regarding the fact that our Jesuit
university, Georgetown, has hired former president of Colombia Alvaro
Uribe Velez, as a professor. I am constantly receiving messages from
individuals and groups who have suffered enormously during his term as
president. They are protesting and questioning the mindset of our
Company, or its lack of ethical judgment in making a decision of this
kind.
It is possible that decision makers at Georgetown have received
positive appraisals from Colombians in high political or economic
positions, but it is difficult to ignore the intense moral
disagreements aroused by his government and the investigations and
sanctions imposed by international organizations that try to protect
human dignity. The mere fact that, during Uribe's political career,
while he was governor of Antioquia Department (1995-1997), he founded
and protected so many paramilitary groups, known euphemistically as
"Convivir" ("To Live Together"), who murdered and "disappeared"
thousands of people and displaced multitudes, committing many other
atrocities, would imply a need for moral censure before entrusting him
with any future responsibility.
But not only did he continue to sponsor those paramilitary groups, but
he defended them and he perfected them into a new pattern of legalized
paramilitarism, including networks of informants, networks of
collaborators, and the new class of private security companies that
involve millions of civilians in military activities related to the
internal armed conflict, while at the same time lying to the
international community with a phony demobilization of the
paramilitaries.
In addition, the scandalous practice of "false positives" took place
during Uribe's administration. The practice consists in murdering
civilians, usually peasants, and after killing them, dressing them as
combatants in order to justify their deaths. That is the way he tried
to demonstrate bogus military victories over the rebels and eliminate
the activists in social movements that work for justice.
The corruption during his administration was more than scandalous, not
just because of the presence of drug traffickers in public positions,
but also because the Congress and many government offices were occupied
by criminals. Today more than a hundred members of Congress are
involved in criminal proceedings, all of them President Uribe's closest
supporters.
The purchase of consciences in order to manipulate the judicial
apparatus was disgraceful. It ended up destroying, at the deepest
level, the moral fabric of the country. Another disgrace was the
corrupt manner in which the ministers closest to him manipulated
agricultural policy in order to favor the very rich with public money,
meanwhile impeding and stigmatizing social projects. The corruption of
his sons, who enriched themselves by using the advantages of power,
scandalized the whole country.
In addition, Uribe used the security agency directly under his control
(the Department of Administrative Security) to spy on the courts,
opposition politicians, and social and human rights movements, by means
of clandestine telephone tapping. The corrupt machinations he used to
obtain his re-election as President in 2006 were sordid in the extreme,
with the result that ministers and close collaborators have almost been
jailed.
He manipulated the coordination between the Army and the paramilitary
groups that resulted in 14,000 extrajudicial executions during his term
of office. His strategies of impunity for those who, through the
government or the "para-government," committed crimes against humanity
will go down in history for their brazenness.
The decision by the Jesuits at Georgetown to offer a professorship to
Alvaro Uribe, is not only deeply offensive to those Colombians who
still maintain moral principles, but also places at high risk the
ethical development of the young people who attend our university in
Washington. Where are the ethics of the Company of Jesus?
I am writing these lines to you because I am sure that you will share
our concerns and perhaps you can forward them to the Jesuits at
Georgetown and to other circles of thoughtful persons you know and to
those who are in sympathy with justice.
With a fond embrace,
Javier Giraldo Moreno, S.J.
We hope you will reconsider your decision to appoint Alvaro Uribe at
Georgetown in light of the concerns noted above. His presence there is
an affront to scholars and their educational mission.
Sincerely,
Osama Abi-Mershed, Assistant Professor of History, Georgetown University
Rodolfo Acuna, Professor of Chicano/a Studies, California State
University, Northridge
Sonia E. Alvarez, Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American
Politics and Society, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Mark Anderson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of
California, Santa Cruz
Tim Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Sydney
Juan Manuel Arbona, Associate Professor and Chair, Growth and Structure
of Cities Department, Bryn Mawr College
Benjamin Arditi, Professor, Centro de Estudios Politicos, Facultad de
Ciencias Politicas y Sociales, UNAM, Mexico
Arturo Arias, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Texas,
Austin
Robert Austin, Ph.D, Fellow, School of Historical Studies, University
of Melbourne
Beth Baker-Cristales, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Acting
Director, Latin American Studies Program, California State University,
Los Angeles
Teo Ballve, Former Editor, NACLA Report on the Americas, Ph.D.
Candidate in Geography, University of California, Berkeley
David Barkin, Profesor de Economia, Universidad Autonoma
Metropolitana-Xochimilco
Anthony Bebbington, Professor and ESRC Professorial Research Fellow,
University of Manchester, UK
Marc Becker, Professor of Latin American History, Truman State
University
Ericka Beckman, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
and Program in Comparative and World Literatures, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Susan Besse, Associate Professor of History, City College and The
Graduate Center, Director, City College Fellowships Program, City
University of New York
John Beverley, Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Languages and
Literatures, University of Pittsburgh
Larry Birns, Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs
John D. Blanco, Professor of Literature, University of California, San
Diego
Anthony Bogues, Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science,
Brown University
Paola Bohorquez, Ph.D., York University, Toronto
Paul A. Bove, Distinguished Professor of English, University of
Pittsburgh
Donald W. Bray, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, California
State University, Los Angeles
Marjorie W. Bray, Director of Latin American Studies, retired,
California State University, Los Angeles
Renate Bridenthal, Professor Emerita of History, Brooklyn College
Bob Buzzanco, Professor of History, University of Houston
Marisol de la Cadena, Associate Profesor of Anthropology, University of
California, Davis
Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program/Programa de las Americas
Marc Chernick, Visiting Associate Professor of Government, Georgetown
University
Ron Chilcote, Professor of Economics, University of California,
Riverside
Amy Chazkel, Assistant Professor of History, Queens College, City
University of New York (CUNY)
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
George Ciccariello-Maher, Assistant Professor of Political Science,
Drexel University
Christopher Clement, Visiting Professor of Politics, Pomona College
James D. Cockcroft, Ph.D., SUNY online professor
Peter Cole, Assoc. Professor of History, Western Illinois University
and Ph.D., Georgetown, 1997
Jaime Concha, Professor of Literature, University of California, San
Diego
Christopher Connery, Professor of Literature, University of California,
Santa Cruz
Antonia Darder, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Pablo Delano, Professor of Fine Arts, Trinity College
Guillermo Delgado-P., Ph.D., Anthropology Department, Field Studies
Director, University of California, Santa Cruz
Robin Maria DeLugan, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of
California, Merced
Monica Dias Martins, Professor of Political Science, Universidade
Estadual do Ceara, Brazil
Arif Dirlik, Liang Qichao Memorial Visiting Professor, Tsinghua
University, Beijing, Knight Professor of Social Science, University of
Oregon
Francisco Dominguez, Ph.D., Program Leader for Spanish and Latin
American Studies, Head of Centre For Brazilian and Latin American
Studies, Department of English, Languages and Philosophy, Middlesex
University, UK
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies, California
State University
Luis Duno, Associate Professor of Caribbean Studies and Film, Rice
University
Marc Edelman, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY
Steve Ellner, Profesor of Political Science, Universidad de Oriente,
Venezuela
Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Daniel Faber, Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University
Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Queens College,
CUNY
Raul Fernandez, Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of
California, Irvine
Bill Fletcher, Jr., BlackCommentator.com editorial board member
Alcira Forero-Pena, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Lehman College, CUNY
Dana Frank, Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz
Gavin Fridell, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Politics,
Trent University, Ontario, Canada
Lesley Gill, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
Stephen R. Gliessman, Ruth and Alfred Heller Professor Emeritus of
Agroecology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Gabriel Ignacio Gomez, Professor, Universidad de Antioquia Law School
(Colombia)
Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University
Gilbert Gonzalez, Professor Emeritus of Chicano and Latino Studies,
University of California, Irvine
Todd Gordon, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, York
University, Toronto
Bruce Grant, Associate Professor of Anthropology, New York University
Jean Max Guieu, Professor of French, Georgetown University
Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington
University
Edgar Ivan Gutierrez, Associate Professor of History and Ethnic
Studies, Riverside City College
Peter Hallward, Professor of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston
University, London
John L. Hammond, Professor of Sociology, CUNY
Jim Handy, Professor of History, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Mark Healy, Assistant Professor of History, University of California,
Berkeley
Judith Adler Hellman, Professor of Political and Social Science, York
University
Doug Hertzler, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Eastern Mennonite
University
Rene Harder Horst, Associate Professor of History, Appalachian State
University
Peter James Hudson, Assistant Professor of History, Vanderbilt
University
Jean Jackson, Professor of Anthropology, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Maurice Jackson, Associate Professor of History and African American
Studies, Georgetown University
Dale Johnson, Professor of Sociology (Retired), Rutgers University
Gilbert M. Joseph, Farnam Professor of History and International
Studies, Yale University
Alejandro Kaufman, Profesor Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos
Aires/Universidad Nacional de Quilmas
Susana Kaiser, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Chair, Latin
American Studies, University of San Francisco
Father Ray Kemp, Senior Fellow, Woodstock Theological Center,
Georgetown University
Robert M. Irwin, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of
California, Davis
Maria Lagos, Assistant Professor Emerita of Anthropology, CUNY
Mark Lance, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University
Sidney Lemelle, Professor of History, Pomona College
Marcia Landy, Distinguished Professor of English and Film Studies,
University of Pittsburgh
Catherine LeGrand, Associate Professor of History, McGill University,
Montreal
Deborah Levenson, Associate Professor of History, Boston College
Kathryne V. Lindberg, Professor of English and Africana Studies, Wayne
State University
Peter Linebaugh, Professor of History, University of Toledo
Dr. Gilberto Lopez y Rivas, Profesor Investigador, Instituto Nacional
de Antropologia e Historia, Centro Regional Morelos, Mexico
Flora Lu, Assistant Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies,
University of California, Santa Cruz
Sheryl Lutjens, Women's Studies Department, California State
University, San Marcos
Catherine Lutz, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology
and International Studies, Chair of Anthropology, Brown University
Florencia E. Mallon, Julieta Kirkwood Professor and Chair of History,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Patricia Martin, Professor in Human Geography, Universite de Montreal
Luis Martin-Cabrera. Assistant Professor, Literature, University of
California, San Diego
Peter McLaren, Ph.D., F.R.S.A, Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Andres Medina Hernandez, Ph.D., Instituto de Investigaciones
Antropologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Breny Mendoza, Professor, California State University, Northridge
Jim Merod, Professor American Literature, Soka University of
America/Aliso Viejo, California
Minoo Moallem, Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of
California, Berkeley
Elizabeth Monasterios, Associate Professor of Hispanic Languages and
Literatures, University of Pittsburgh
Isidoro Moreno-Navarro, Ph.D., Catedratico (Senior Professor) de
Antropologia, Universidad de Sevilla, Andalucia, Espana
Frederick B. Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University
Liisa L. North, Professor Emerita of Political Science, York
University, Toronto
Fellow, Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean
(CERLAC), York
University
Enrique C. Ochoa, Professor of History and Latin American Studies,
California State University, Los Angeles
Daniel T. O'Hara, Professor of English and First Mellon Term Professor
of Humanities, Temple University
Andrew Orta, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Director, Center for
Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Mark Overmyer-Velazquez, Associate Professor of History, Director,
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of
Connecticut
Rev. Dr. Joseph Palacios, Adjunct Professor, Center for Latin American
Studies, Georgetown University
Donald A. Pease, Professor of English, Ted and Helen Geisel Third
Century Professor in the Humanities, Dartmouth College
Ivette Perfecto, George W. Pack Professor of Natural Resources and
Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Hector Perla Jr., Assistant Professor, Latin American and Latino
Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
John Pilger, Journalist, UK
Deborah Poole, Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
Margaret Power, Professor of History, Illinois Institute of Technology,
and Georgetown University alumni, College, 1975
Pablo Alejandro Pozzi, History Department, University of Buenos Aires
Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History,
Director and Professor of International Studies, Trinity College
Richard Purcell, Assistant Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon
University
Peter Ranis, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, CUNY
Joanne Rappaport, Professor of Anthropology and Spanish and Portuguese,
Georgetown University
Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History, University
of Pittsburgh
Darryl Reed, Associate Professor, Business & Society, Chair,
Department of Social Science, York University, Toronto, President,
Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation
Gerardo Renique, Associate Professor of History, City College, CUNY
William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology and Global and
International Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara
Clemencia Rodriguez, Professor of Communication, University of Oklahoma
Victor M. Rodriguez, Professor, Department of Chicano and Latino
Studies, California State University, Long Beach
Cristina Rojas, Professor, Norman Paterson School of International
Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Nancy Romer, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Brooklyn College
Jan Rus, Latin American Perspectives
Eduardo Saenz Rovner, Professor, School of Economic Sciences,
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Rosaura Sanchez, Professor of Literature, University of California, San
Diego
Olga Sanmiguel, Professor of Women's Studies, University of Cincinnati
T.M. Scruggs, Professor Emeritus of Music, University of Iowa
Ellen Schrecker, Professor of History, Yeshiva University
Barbara Schroder, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Center for Advanced
Study in Education, CUNY
Sheila M Shannon, Associate Professor of Education and Human
Development, University of Colorado-Denver
Victor Silverman, Associate Professor of History, Pomona College
Brad Simpson, Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs,
Princeton University, Director, Indonesia and East Timor Documentation
Project
Julie Skurski, Distinguished Lecture in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate
Center
Carol A. Smith, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of
California, Davis
William A. Spanos, Distinguished Professor of English, State University
of New York, Binghamton
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in the Humanities,
Columbia University
Richard Stahler-Sholk, Professor of Political Science, Eastern Michigan
University
Anita Starosta, Rhode Island School of Design
Marcia Stephenson, Associate Professor of Spanish, Purdue University
Pamela Stricker, Associate Professor of Political Science, California
State University, San Marcos
Steve Striffler, Professor of Anthropology and Geography, Doris
Zemurray Stone Chair in Latin American Studies, University of New
Orleans
Silvia Tandeciarz, Professor and Chair of Modern Languages and
Literatures, College of William and Mary
Margo Tamez, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's
Studies/Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia
Sinclair Thomson, Associate Professor of History, New York University
Miguel Tinker-Salas, Miguel R. Arango Professor in Latin American
History, Pomona College
Mayo C. Toruno, Professor of Economics, California State University,
San Bernardino
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Max Viatori, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Iowa State University
Steven S. Volk, Professor of History and Chair, Latin American Studies,
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Marilyn Young, Professor of History, New York University
William Walker, Professor of History, University Toronto (ret.)
Clare Weber, Professor of Sociology, California State University,
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London
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Caroline Yezer, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the
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of Houston
"They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Outrage continues to grow against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over her response to the deadly floods that ravaged Texas last week.
According to a Friday report from The New York Times, more than two-thirds of phone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from flood victims went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off on July 5, just a day after the nightmare storm.
According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls.
"Responding to less than half of the inquiries is pretty horrific," Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Times.
"Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You've lost everything, you're trying to find out what's insured and what's not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs," he added. "One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork."
The lapse is a direct result of a policy introduced by Noem last month, which required any payments made by FEMA above $100,000 to be directly approved by her before taking effect. Noem, who has said she wants to eliminate FEMA entirely, described it as a way of limiting "waste, fraud, and abuse."
Under this policy, Noem allowed other critical parts of the flood response to wait for days as well. Earlier this week, multiple officials within FEMA told CNN that she waited more than 72 hours to authorize the deployment of search and rescue teams and aerial imaging.
Following The Times' piece, DHS put out a statement claiming that "NO ONE was left without assistance, and every call was responded to urgently."
"When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase," DHS said. "Despite this expected influx, FEMA's disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance. No call center operators were laid off or fired."
This is undercut, however, by internal emails also obtained by The Times, which showed FEMA officials becoming frustrated and blaming the DHS Secretary for the lack of contracts. One official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues: "We still do not have a decision, waiver, or signature from the DHS Secretary."
Democratic lawmakers were already calling for investigations into Noem's response to the floods before Friday. They also sought to look into how the Trump administration's mass firings of FEMA employees, as well as employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have hampered the response.
Following The Times' revelations, outrage has reached a greater fever pitch.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it "unforgivable and unforgettable" and an "inexcusable lapse in top leadership."
"Sec. Noem shows that dismantling FEMA impacts real people in real time," he said. "It hurts countless survivors & increases recovery costs."
In response to the news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) simply wrote that "Kristi Noem must resign now."
Others pointed out that Noem has often sought to justify abolishing FEMA by characterizing it as slow and ineffectual. They suggested her dithering response was deliberate.
"She broke it on purpose," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in an interview on MSNBC. "So that when it fails this summer, she can say, 'Oh, see, we told you—FEMA doesn't work.'"
"It's not really incompetence because they know what they are doing," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis."
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the Trump administration to stop carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in the city and its surrounding areas, citing its use of "unconstitutional tactics," including racial profiling and denying the right to an attorney.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California wrote that there is a "mountain of evidence" that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents are "indiscriminately rounding up numerous individuals without reasonable suspicion" in violation of the Fourth Amendment during their "roving patrols" in the region.
She issued two temporary restraining orders against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). One bars agents from targeting individuals based on race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in specific locations such as bus stops, car washes, or agricultural sites; or type of employment. The second requires DHS to provide access to attorneys for those who are arrested.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other local legal organizations on behalf of five plaintiffs who said their rights were violated by immigration agents.
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody.
In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
Two of the plaintiffs were U.S. citizens.
One of them, a dual U.S. and Mexican citizen, said he was questioned and detained by unidentified officers on three separate occasions while working at a car wash in Orange County. Agents insisted that his passport was fake and repeatedly asked if he was American.
Another U.S. citizen was told he was arrested because he "looked like an illegal alien." Agents with military-style rifles and handguns repeatedly asked him, "What hospital were you born at?" When he could not answer the question, an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a metal fence. After he showed the officers his Real ID, he says they took it and never returned it to him.
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
"While it does not take a federal judge to recognize that marauding bands of masked, rifle-toting goons have been violating ordinary people’s rights throughout Southern California, we are hopeful that today’s ruling will be a step toward accountability for the federal government’s flagrant lawlessness that we have all been witnessing," he added.
Since early June, Southern California has been the epicenter of the Trump administration's "mass deportation" push, with thousands of immigrants detained—often by unidentified, masked agents—in sweeping raids that have traumatized Latino communities across the state.
Despite the administration publicizing the arrests of violent criminals, the vast majority of those arrested have no criminal history. More than 1,500 people have been disappeared, the ACLU said last week, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
"Due process, access to counsel, dignity, and respect were not afforded to our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors as ICE plowed through our community in their obsessive, racially motivated quest for quotas," said Angelica Salas, executive director at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). "No one is above the law, and today’s decision reaffirms that President Trump and all its immigration enforcement apparatus must follow the Constitution."
"If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration," said one U.S. group.
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health and cousins of Sayfollah Musallat—also known as Saif al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat—said Friday that Israeli settlers beat the dual U.S.-Palestinian citizen to death while he was visiting family in the illegally occupied West Bank.
A spokesperson for the ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told Agence France-Press that 23-year-old Musallat "died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon."
Abdul Samad Abdul Aziz, from the nearby village of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya, said that "the young man was injured and remained so for four hours. The [Israeli] army prevented us from reaching him and did not allow us to take him away."
"When we finally managed to reach him, he was taking his last breath," he added.
The Times of Israel reported that the "ministry later said a second man, 23-year-old Mohammad Shalabi, was fatally shot by settlers," and "there have been no arrests yet."
According to the Tel Aviv-based newspaper Haaretz, "The Israeli army said it was 'aware of reports' of the incident and that it was 'being looked into by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police.'"
Zeteo's Prem Thakker spoke with two of Musallat's cousins, Fatmah Muhammad and another granted anonymity due to safety concerns. They said that he grew up in Port Charlotte, Florida, and arrived in June to visit family in the Palestinian town of al-Mazra'a ash-Sharqiya.
As Thakker detailed:
Muhammad described Musallat as "one of those kids that everyone loves" with a "beautiful heart," a "sweet, gentle kid, very genuine," everyone attests as funny and bright.
In Florida, he helped run a family ice cream shop, a place where his personality shone through, his family members said.
Muhammad and the other family source said that the entire Palestinian town where the family is from is devastated.
"There's no justice there. You can't call the police. You can't call the Israeli government. The murderers just get to walk away," Muhammad said.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces have killed over 57,800 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip—which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). During that time, IDF soldiers and Israeli settlers' sometimes deadly violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also surged.
Additionally, despite the ICJ's July 2024 finding that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible, and Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to unlawful annexation, there are growing calls in Israel's government to formally annex the West Bank.
Musallat's death came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court accused of continuing the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza to stay in power—returned to Israel after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. this week.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, said in a Friday statement that "we strongly condemn these racist Israeli settlers, backed and enabled by the Netanyahu government, for beating an American citizen to death in the occupied West Bank."
"This murder is only the latest killing of an American citizen by illegal Israeli settlers or soldiers," he noted. "Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians. If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration."
According to Thakker: "Musallat is at least the seventh American killed in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon since October 7, 2023, including six killed by Israeli forces. Earlier this week, Zeteo asked several Republican senators if they knew how many Americans had been killed by Israel in the last 21 months. None of them could answer."