September, 23 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mara Dolan, Women’s Environment and Development Organization, mara@wedo.org, 217-550-8433
Women's Rights, Climate Activists Launch Feminist Agenda for Green New Deal
Feminist climate justice activists introduce collective feminist demands for Green New Deal policies, programs the day after UN Climate Summit
WASHINGTON
WHAT: In response to the UN Climate Summit, climate justice and women's rights activists will introduce collective feminist demands to guide and advance the Green New Deal.
WHEN: Tuesday September 24th 6:45-8:00 pm EST.
WHERE: 777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 1001, United Nations Church Center in New York City. RSVP here.
WHO: The coalition represents a wide range of organizations working on climate, environmental, immigrant, racial, economic, and gender justice, including the Sierra Club, the Women's Environment and Development Organization, the NAACP, MADRE, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, among others.
WHY: As New York's Climate Week brings attention to the climate crisis and interest in the U.S. Green New Deal Resolution grows all over the country, the coalition's campaign aims to ensure that gender and global justice, climate justice, and human rights are at the core of climate programs and policies. The coalition's Feminist Green New Deal campaign will continue through the fall, with Congressional office visits later this week and a policy agenda scheduled for a Fall release.
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
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In an escalation of the Trump administration's tense relationship with the judiciary, the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday sued the entire 15-judge bench of Maryland's U.S. District Court over a recent immigration-related order, a move that was met with alarm by several observers.
The lawsuit comes in response to an order by Chief Judge George L. Russell III, who in May imposed a stay for a period of two days on the deportation of any immigration custody detainee in Maryland who files a petition for habeas corpus, which is a legal action challenging the lawfulness of a person's detention. The plaintiffs in the new case are the United States and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to The Washington Post, the complaint makes the case that the order was "unlawful" and "antidemocratic." It also alleges that the order runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent and intrudes "on core Executive Branch powers." Russell's order applies not only to cases before him, but also the 14 other district judges in Maryland, per the Post.
"President [Donald] Trump's executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda," said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand."
Adam Bonica, a political science professor at Stanford University, called the DOJ's core claim in the lawsuit "stunning." On his Substack, Bonica wrote that the DOJ is essentially arguing that the Trump administration is being injured "by the very existence of judicial oversight."
Several legal experts characterized the lawsuit as an attack on judicial independence, as did the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
"This isn't about process. It's about punishing judges for rulings the administration doesn't like. That's authoritarianism 101," the group said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Alicia Bannon, the director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, addedthat "if the administration's challenge is successful, it will be far easier to evade the courts altogether in future immigration cases."
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The judges named in the lawsuit have ruled on major cases involving the Trump administration this year. For example, Judge Paula Xinis, one of the defendants, is overseeing the high-profile case of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. He is back on U.S. soil now after the Trump administration delayed returning him to the country.
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An Oxfam report published Wednesday estimates that the richest 1% globally have seen their wealth surge by more than $33.9 trillion over the past decade, with just 3,000 billionaires accounting for $6.5 trillion of that increase.
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According to Oxfam's analysis, the roughly $34 trillion wealth increase enjoyed by the global 1% since 2015 would be enough to eliminate annual poverty "22 times over."
"It's time we rejected the Wall Street Consensus and instead put the public in the driving seat."
The report argues that "a new agenda is needed" to break free from the private profit-centered global development model that has allowed international crises to run rampant while letting the ultra-wealthy continue growing their massive fortunes unabated.
The upcoming conference in Seville, the report states, represents a key opportunity for countries that are willing to "work together to tackle extreme inequality" and "reject the 'Wall Street Consensus' around financing development."
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"It's time we rejected the Wall Street Consensus and instead put the public in the driving seat," said Behar. "Governments should heed widespread demands to tax the rich—and match it with a vision to build public goods from healthcare to energy. It's a hopeful sign that some governments are banding together to fight inequality—more should follow their lead, starting in Seville."
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Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier laid out plans to transform the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport—previously called the Everglades Jetport—into a temporary detention facility for undocumented immigrants in a video posted on the social media site X last week.
The site "presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there's not much waiting for 'em other than alligators and pythons," he said in the video. "Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide."
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Citing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Reutersreported that "the Florida facility, estimated to cost $450 million annually, could eventually house up to 5,000 people."
According toThe New York Times, "A spokesperson for the attorney general said work on the new facility started on Monday morning." The effort is directly tied to President Donald Trump's push for mass deportations that critics denounce as devastating for families and the economy.
Trump's homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, toldUSA Today that the facility will be partly funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program. Her department said on X that "we are working on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations. Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida."
Responding to that post, Uthmeier wrote that "I'm proud to help support President Trump and Secretary Noem in their mission to fix our illegal immigration problem once and for all. Alligator Alcatraz and other Florida facilities will do just that. We in Florida will fight alongside this administration to keep Florida safe, strong, and free."
Florida turning airfield in the Everglades into "Alligator Alcatraz" to hold detained migrants
[image or embed]
— MSNBC (@msnbc.com) June 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
The plan has been lambasted by some local environmentalists and Indigenous people, as well as Florida Democrats. José Javier Rodríguez, a Democrat running to be the state's attorney general, said in a Wednesday statement that Uthmeier's Alligator Alcatraz "isn't a serious plan, it's a reckless, rushed project that puts lives and resources at risk."
"Detaining immigrants at a remote airfield in the Everglades, with no clear legal framework or due process, is about fear, not safety," he continued. "The most obvious reason seems to be political theater, just trying to get attention in Washington, rather than looking out for the interests of our state and its people."
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Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) also blasted the plan, saying in a Tuesday statement that "Donald Trump, his administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear: They intend to use the power of government to kidnap, brutalize, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can—because they have a deep disdain for immigrants and are using them to scapegoat the serious issues facing working people."
"They would rather us point fingers at immigrants for the housing crisis, violence, lack of healthcare, and high costs that plague our nation rather than blame the inaction of politicians and greedy corporations," he argued. "This was never about public safety. It was never about putting America first."
Frost continued:
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Frost wasn't the only federal lawmaker who sounded the alarm this week. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a fierce critic of the president's anti-migrant agenda, said Tuesday that "there's no clearer illustration of the brutality of the Trump administration than robbing funds from cities supporting asylum-seekers to build 'Alligator Alcatraz.'"
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