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For Immediate Release
August, 12 2013, 01:11pm EDT
Contact:
Meghan Groob, 202-417-7547, media@dcaclu.org
ACLU Comment on DOJ Plans to Reduce Non-Violent Drug Sentences
WASHINGTON
Laura W. Murphy, director of American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, responded to Attorney General Eric Holder's proposed policy to reverse the growth of the federal prison population in advance of a speech today at the American Bar Association's Annual Meeting:
"Today, the attorney general is taking crucial steps to tackle our bloated federal mass incarceration crisis, and we are thrilled by these long-awaited developments.
"By mandating that U.S. attorneys change charging practices for low-level, non-violent offenders, these policies will make it more likely that wasteful and harmful federal prison overcrowding will end. Over the last year, in one of the few areas of bipartisanship, members of Congress have come together to call for smart criminal justice reform. While today's announcement is an important step toward a fairer justice system, Congress must change the laws that lock up hundreds of thousands of Americans unfairly and unnecessarily."
Throughout Eric Holder's tenure, going back to the successful passage of the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, the ACLU has worked closely with the attorney general, his staff, and DOJ leadership to develop several of the policy changes announced today.
For more on the ACLU's work on criminal justice reform, see:
aclu.org/racial-justice/criminal-justice
This statement is available at:
aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/aclu-comment-doj-plans-reduce-non-violent-drug-sentences
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
Mahmoud Khalil to Sue Trump Admin for $20 Million Over 'Unconstitutional' Detention
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," said Khalil. "And I won't stop here."
Jul 10, 2025
Pro-Palestinian student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil on Thursday began the process of suing U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for $20 million in damages for the harm he suffered as a result of the government's "politically motivated plan to unlawfully arrest, detain, and deport" him.
"This is the first step towards accountability," Khalil said in a statement. "Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me. The trauma, the separation from my wife, the birth of my first child that I was forced to miss. But let's be clear, the same government that targeted me for speaking out is using taxpayer dollars to fund Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," he asserted. "And I won't stop here. I will continue to pursue justice against everyone who contributed to my unlawful detention or spread lies in an attempt to destroy my reputation, including those affiliated with Columbia University. I'm holding the U.S. government accountable not just for myself, but for everyone they try to silence through fear, exile, or detention."
In March, federal agents who were in plain clothes and lacked a warrant accosted Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who recently finished a graduate program at Columbia, and his wife—Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen who was then pregnant with their son—outside their New York City home. Following Khalil's arrest, several other student activists critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza were also targeted for deportation.
The claim that 30-year-old Khalil filed Thursday against the U.S. Homeland Security and State departments, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is a precursor to a lawsuit that will cite the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), part of his legal team.
The filing accuses the Trump administration of carrying out a plan to deport Khalil "in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family," and says the mistreatment caused "severe emotional distress, economic hardship, damage to his reputation, and significant impairment of his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights."
Mahmoud Khalil has filed a claim against the Trump administration, seeking either $20 million or an official apology and change in the administration’s policy after he was held in detention for over 100 days. NBC News’ Maya Eaglin spoke to Khalil in New York City.
[image or embed]
— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) July 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who was finally freed from an ICE facility in Louisiana last month, is seeking $20 million to help others similarly targeted by the government and Columbia, but "he would accept, in lieu of payment, an official apology and abandonment of the administration's unconstitutional policy," CCR explained.
The Associated Press reported that "a White House spokesperson deferred comment to the State Department, which said its actions were fully supported by the law. In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil's claim 'absurd,' accusing him of 'hateful behavior and rhetoric' that threatened Jewish students."
While the departments' comments signal that the Trump administration won't be making any apologies, Khalil's team is determined to move forward with his case.
"The Trump administration's unconstitutional targeting of Mr. Khalil led to severe harms that he continues to navigate, including financial loss, reputational damage, and emotional distress," said Samah Sisay, staff attorney at CCR. "Mr. Khalil will never get back the three months stolen from him while in immigration detention, including his child's birth and first months of life. The government must take accountability for their unlawful actions and compensate Mr. Khalil for his suffering."
Khalil's claim was filed a day after an ICE official testified under oath that a task force formed in March used lists from Canary Mission, an operation linked to Israeli intelligence agencies, and the pro-Israel group Betar Worldwide to compile reports on international students targeted for their protest activities.
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Dean Phillips' Attack on Mamdani Is an Attack on 'Millions of Working-Class People,' Progressives Say
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said one commentator. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too?"
Jul 10, 2025
In an interview with CNN, former Congressman Dean Phillips was asked whether "there is room" for him and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Party—but progressive Rep. Summer Lee was among those saying on Thursday that Phillips' rejection of Mamdani wwas really about millions of Americans who have voted for candidates like him.
"These guys aren't just rejecting him, but the millions moved to electoral action by candidates like him," said Lee (D-Pa.) in response to Phillips' interview.
CNN's Omar Jimenez asked Phillips about the "big tent" philosophy often promoted by Democratic leaders who believe the party should welcome lawmakers and candidates who don't agree with every aspect of its platform—politicians like anti-choice Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who made millions of dollars from his coal business.
Jimenez asked whether Mamdani, a democratic socialist who stunned former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the party's leadership in the Democratic mayoral primary last month, should also be welcomed into the party's "big tent."
"The answer ultimately is no," said Phillips, who was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before he left office to run for president in a long-shot bid against former President Joe Biden in the 2024 race—losing his home state of Minnesota and garnering just 1.7% of the vote in South Carolina, falling behind author Marianne Williamson.
Phillips admitted that "most Americans share the same values" as Mamdani, who has advocated for fare-free public transit, universal free childcare, and city-run grocery stores to operate alongside private stores and provide low-cost essentials to working families.
But he claimed that while "differences of opinion, perspective, life story, politics, and experience" are beneficial to the Democratic Party, the presence of so-called "socialists" like Mamdani is not.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want neither far-left or far-right politics," he said without citing any supporting evidence.
Phillips appeared confident that Democratic voters across the country would recoil from candidates like Mamdani—despite recent rallies in red districts where progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who both endorsed Mamdani, have drawn crowds of thousands of people in recent months during Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
In addition to Mamdani's historic success in the Democratic primary—with more New Yorkers voting for him than in any other primary election in the history of the nation's largest city—numerous polls have shown that Americans back policies like those that powered his campaign.
A poll by Child Care for Every Family in 2023 found that 92% of parents with children under age 5 supported guaranteed, government-funded childcare, including 79% of Republican parents and 83% of independent parents.
Raising taxes for corporations and wealthy households is also broadly popular, with about 6 in 10 Americans supporting the proposal in a recent Pew Research poll.
And despite efforts by centrist Democrats and Republicans to portray Mamdani's platform as radical, programs like his fare-free bus proposal have already been implemented in cities like Kansas City, Raleigh, and Boston on three of the city's busiest bus routes.
"Maybe our big tent should have less millionaire nepo heirs and more fighters for the millions of working-class people," suggested Lee on Thursday.
Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project also condemned Phillips for suggesting Mamdani—and ostensibly the 565,639 New Yorkers who voted for him—have no place in the party.
"The stated position here is that socialists cannot be part of the Democratic Party," said Bruenig. "Does this hold for the socialist voters too? Should they also not vote for the party? Phillips is trying to radically shrink the party. Scary stuff."
"Centrists and other moderates are spending a nontrivial amount of national political energy being mad at Zohran," he added, "which could instead be spent on [President Donald] Trump and Republicans."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution is circulating a petition that's garnered more than 30,000 signatures from people urging Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—all New York Democrats who have yet to endorse their own party's mayoral candidate—not to "sabotage" Mamdani.
Despite Phillips' insistence that Mamdani doesn't belong in the party, the resistance in New York appeared to weaken a bit Thursday as Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) endorsed the candidate.
"New Yorkers have spoken loud and clear," said Espaillat, who had previously backed Cuomo. "And as a lifelong Democrat, I'm endorsing the Democratic Party nominee."
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Progressives, Democrats Vow Fight as Senate GOP Aims to Claw Back Billions in Federal Funding
Republicans plan to utilize a rare process called "rescission" to skirt Congress' power of the purse and illegally allow Trump to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to critical programs.
Jul 10, 2025
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether President Donald Trump can claw back billions of dollars that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Last month, the House narrowly voted to allow Trump to rescind $9.4 billion in funds that were meant to fund global health initiatives—including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis prevention—and public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
It's far from the first time that this Republican-controlled Congress has voted on massive budget cuts, but progressive groups and some Democratic lawmakers say this vote has another frightening dimension to it.
These funds were among the more than $420 billion appropriated by Congress that Trump illegally impounded, or refused to spend, at the start of his term.
In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, a coalition of more than 100 groups—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace—warned that by voting to approve these rescissions of federal funds, they would be giving Trump tacit approval to unconstitutionally take away Congress' authority to spend money.
"This rescissions proposal does not ask Congress, as required by the Impoundment Control Act, to approve the entirety of the federal spending that has been illegally frozen by the Trump administration," the letter notes. "The administration is merely trying to establish a veil of legitimacy while it continues unconstitutional actions that it began more than 100 days ago."
The groups went on to warn that allowing the president to unilaterally cut funding that he doesn't approve of "risks irreparable damage to the regular bipartisan appropriations process."
"Despite the political back-and-forth, Congress eventually reaches a bipartisan agreement on government funding every year, one way or another," they said. "The basis for that bipartisan agreement is that both parties must agree to compromises to achieve any of their goals. If a party with a political trifecta can simply rescind funding for the parts of appropriations bills they compromised on, they undermine congressional checks and balances and the basis for future bipartisan dealmaking on an already politically fraught process."
Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, presidents are forbidden from unilaterally refusing to spend funds. However, Congress is allowed to pass a "rescission" bill within 45 days of canceling them if the president requests it.
Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton in 1999 to successfully have funds rescinded by Congress, and it would be the largest rescission in four decades.
But as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, there is a key difference: "The administration illegally impounded the funds at issue for months before proposing the [rescission] package" and that it is "unlawfully withholding much larger amounts of funding that it has not proposed for rescission."
According to a tracker created by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sit on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively, the Trump administration is blocking congressionally appropriated funds for programs including:
- Research into Alzheimer's disease, women's health, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses;
- Natural disaster relief;
- School lunch assistance for children;
- Early childhood education through the Head Start Program; and
- Birth control and cancer screenings for over 800,000 patients
Russell Vought, the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has openly indicated a desire to use rescission to cut all of this spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.
According to The New York Times, Vought is planning to use an even more arcane and illegal maneuver known as "pocket rescission" to avoid spending the funds. As Tony Romm reported in June:
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.
Some Senate Democrats have indicated they'd be willing to risk a government shutdown to prevent the rescission bill from passing.
In a letter published Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that the prospect of the rescissions bill passing had "grave implications."
"[I]t is absurd for [Republicans] to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," Schumer wrote.
Murray called out Vought directly on Wednesday at a markup session on the next round of bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"For us to be able to work in a bipartisan way effectively, that requires us to work with each other. To not just write bipartisan funding bills—but to defend them from partisan cuts sought by the president and the OMB director," she said during her opening remarks. "We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work."
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