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For Immediate Release
February, 25 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Claudia Muñoz, cmunoz@grassrootsleadership.org, 512-910-1759
Daniel Lee and Lauren Wilfong, dtl305@nyu.edu & lmw337@nyu.edu, 413-835-5754 & 413-207-4207
Dave Bennion, david.bennion@freemigrate.org, 646-441-0741
Jen Nessel, jnessel@ccrjustice.org, 212-614-6449
Immigrant Rights Groups Sue ICE for Immediate Release of Information Concerning the Continuing Retaliation Against Immigrants in Sanctuary
Groups File Lawsuit to Hold ICE and DOJ Accountable, Seek Documents and Transparency Regarding Targeting of Sanctuary Seekers and Activists With Excessive, Retaliatory Fines
WASHINGTON
Amid a week of action lead by a collective of immigrants taking sanctuary across the U.S., Austin Sanctuary Network, Free Migration Project, Grassroots Leadership, and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking answers about how the Trump administration decided to target sanctuary leaders with six-figure fines.
In the summer of 2019, a number of high-profile activists in sanctuary--all women who fled persecution in their countries of origin--were notified of ICE's intent to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from each of them. These notices were abruptly withdrawn, only to be re-issued several months later. The FOIA sought documents concerning this unprecedented spate of civil fines against people who have chosen to take sanctuary while pursuing their legal remedies to remain in the U.S.
"It is so painful to have to continue to endure attacks from ICE when all I want is to be free. These fines couldn't have been anything other than retaliation for the love and support that I have received from my community here in Austin, TX," said Hilda Ramirez, an activist and leader of Austin Sanctuary Network who has lived in sanctuary in an Austin, Texas church since 2016. "Behind closed doors, ICE officials have admitted they are targeting me for political reasons, but then they deny it publicly. It is time that ICE tells us exactly why they are targeting me and other women who are in sanctuary," continued Ramirez. Ramirez was one of a handful of sanctuary leaders who received such an "intent to fine" notice in 2019.
Edith Espinal Moreno, an immigration activist and sanctuary seeker in Ohio, also received such a notice. "It was surprising and upsetting when I received the letter from ICE threatening to fine me. I know they are trying to scare me and other people in sanctuary, but I won't give up. My faith in God and the support of the community gives me strength to do everything I can to keep my family together," said Espinal Moreno.
The federal lawsuit was filed this morning against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (DOT), and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in the Southern District of New York. The three agencies have failed to produce virtually any documents to the requestors, who filed their FOIA request in September 2019.
Urging transparency and accountability, Claudia Munoz, Interim Executive Co-Director of Grassroots Leadership, stated: "ICE continues to act in a way that makes them seem as though they are not accountable. But as government employees they are in fact accountable, not only to elected officials, but to the public and the courts as well. ICE has made troubling decisions by targeting people for political reasons, and we have every reason to believe the decision to impose costly fines against sanctuary leaders is no different. If they have nothing to hide, they should release any and all communication they had regarding the fines."
"These fines are part of the Trump administration's ongoing campaign to target, punish, and vilify our nation's immigrants and immigrants' rights advocates. From describing sanctuary cities as 'catastrophic' and 'dangerous' to deploying Customs and Border Protection SWAT-like personnel and withholding federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions, these fines only serve to retaliate against courageous sanctuary leaders who have dared to advocate for just and humane immigration policies," said Lupe Aguirre, Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The groups argue that access to these documents is vital because of the retaliatory nature of the fines. "These actions by the U.S. government, and their subsequent lack of transparency, raise serious constitutional concerns about government retaliation for freedom of speech and the imposition of excessive and punitive fines," said Daniel Lee of the NYU Law Immigrant Rights Clinic. "They are part and parcel of the Trump administration's attempts to punish sanctuary leaders and sanctuary jurisdictions," added Lauren Wilfong of the NYU Law Immigrant Rights Clinic.
These fines have alarmed immigrant rights activists, media organizations, and Congressional Representatives--sparking vigils, protests, and the introduction of private bills in Congress in support of the women who were fined.
"The egregious fines ICE issued against women in sanctuary show the lengths to which ICE will go to retaliate against immigrant leaders who speak out against family separation and unjust deportation policies. The fact that ICE then rescinded the fines reflects the power of the community that supports these sanctuary leaders. However, the sanctuary leaders need support from our elected officials in Congress because ICE is threatening to renew the fines," said David Bennion, Executive Director of Free Migration Project.
As part of a week of action organized by sanctuary and faith leaders, the groups held a press conference on Wednesday, February 26, announcing the filing of the lawsuit and other efforts to investigate this disturbing new pattern of retaliation.
To learn more about the case and read today's filing, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights case page.
For more information about the requesting organizations, please visit:
https://austinsanctuarynetwork.org
https://freemigrationproject.org
https://grassrootsleadership.org
https://ccrjustice.org
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
(212) 614-6464LATEST NEWS
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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Brazilians Rally Around Lula After Trump Tariff Threat
"True Brazlians... do not let yourselves be the dogs of an American president who shames the ideas of democracy," wrote the editors of a major Brazilian newspaper.
Jul 10, 2025
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have gotten a political boost thanks to the intervention of U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, Trump announced he was slapping all Brazilian imports with a 50% tariff to protest the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally who was indicted on charges related to an alleged coup plot to illegally remain in power after he lost the 2022 general election.
However, it does not appear that Trump's intervention into Brazil's domestic politics is helping Bolsonaro in the court of public opinion and Brazilian publication Globo reports that Brazilians have been swarming the U.S. president's Instagram account and leaving messages telling him to "leave Brazil in peace" while insisting their country is "not a lawless land."
In an analysis piece published by the São Paulo-based Folha, journalist Igor Gielow declared that Bolsonaro was an "immediate loser" of Trump's decision, as in the past he has declared Trump to be his political idol and the two are generally seen as joined at the hip. What's more, Gielow argues that the Trump tariffs are most likely to hurt Brazil's agribusiness sector, which is where the core of Bolsonaro's political support lies.
Lorrena Rodrigues, a columnist at the more conservative newspaper Estadão, argued that Trump had given a "gift" to Lula by giving his party the opportunity to focus public attention away from domestic problems and "to exploit a patriotism that used to be the monopoly" of the country's right-wing opposition party.
Rodrigues also said that Trump's tariffs against Brazil had no economic justification given that the United States runs a trade surplus with the country, which makes it seem as though Trump "wants to interfere in the internal politics and the justice system of Brazil through international commerce," which is not something likely to be popular in the country.
A leading editorial published in Estadão delivered even harsher criticism of the American president, whom it likened to a member of the mafia.
"Trump is using the threat of import tariffs on Brazil to obligate the country to surrender to his absurd demands," wrote the editors, who further said that Trump "lied shamelessly in his letter to justify the drastic measure" he imposed on Brazil. The editorial concluded by imploring "true Brazilians" to "not let yourselves be the dogs of an American president who shames the ideas of democracy."
Globo also reports that members of the conservative opposition party held an emergency meeting to discuss how to respond politically to Trump's tariffs. One unnamed Senate leader who spoke with the publication described Trump's surprise announcement as "a shot in the foot."
"Who's going to be in favor of this?" the Senate leader wondered. "Who's going to go against their own country?"
Brazilians have for decades been suspicious of the United States' intentions toward their national sovereignty since the U.S. backed a military coup in 1964 that ousted its democratically elected left-wing government and replaced it with a dictatorship that lasted for more than two decades.
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Trump Admin Kicks Undocumented Kids Out of Head Start, Community Health Programs
"Head Start programs strive to make every child feel welcome, safe, and supported, and reject the characterization of any child as 'illegal,'" said one critic of the move.
Jul 10, 2025
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that undocumented immigrant children will no longer qualify for Head Start and other federally funded programs that the Trump administration argues are meant to serve American citizens.
HHS formally rescinded a 1998 interpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), the cornerstone of congressional Republicans' so-called "Contract With America" and the fulfillment of then-Democratic President Bill Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it."
That long-standing interpretation, HHS said, "improperly extended certain federal public benefits to illegal aliens," thus "undercutting the law by allowing illegal aliens to access programs Congress intended only for the American people."
"For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans' tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in statement. "Today's action changes that—it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people."
The HHS rule change follows a February executive order from President Donald Trump ordering federal agencies to increase restrictions on undocumented immigrants' access to taxpayer-funded services.
In addition to Head Start—the federally funded preschool program that Trump unsuccessfully sought to eliminate from the budget reconciliation legislation he recently signed—the new HHS interpretation applies to all programs classified as "federal public benefits" under PRWORA. These include health clinics, mental health services block grants, homelessness transition block grants, substance abuse treatment, and other programs.
Critics condemned the HHS move.
"Head Start programs strive to make every child feel welcome, safe, and supported, and reject the characterization of any child as 'illegal,'" said Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the advocacy group National Head Start Association.
"The Head Start Act has never required documentation of immigration status as a condition for enrollment over the last 60 years," Vinci added. "Attempts to impose such a requirement threaten to create fear and confusion among all families who are focused on raising healthy children, ready to succeed in school and life."
The HHS policy change is part of the Trump administration's wider anti-immigrant agenda. The president has launched a mass deportation drive, opened the "Alligator Alcatraz" concentration camp in the Florida Everglades, stripped temporary protected status from numerous nationalities, pushed to end birthright citizenship, and arrested and jailed green-card holders for peacefully protesting genocide—among other xenophobic and racist policies and practices.
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