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ACLU Comment on End of Remain in Mexico Program
The Biden administration announced it is formally ending the remain in Mexico program, also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
The American Civil Liberties Union and partners challenged the Trump administration policy when it was first implemented. In January, the Biden administration suspended new MPP enrollments.
Judy Rabinovitz, ACLU attorney and lead counsel in the MPP challenge, had the following reaction to today's developments:
WASHINGTON
The Biden administration announced it is formally ending the remain in Mexico program, also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
The American Civil Liberties Union and partners challenged the Trump administration policy when it was first implemented. In January, the Biden administration suspended new MPP enrollments.
Judy Rabinovitz, ACLU attorney and lead counsel in the MPP challenge, had the following reaction to today's developments:
"This is a huge victory. The forced return policy was cruel, depraved, and illegal, and we are glad that it has finally been rescinded. The administration must follow through on this announcement by ensuring that everyone who has been subjected to this policy can now pursue their asylum cases in the United States, in safety and without additional trauma or delay. And it must swiftly move to dismantle the Trump administration's other attacks on the asylum system, including the unconscionable 'Title 42' order."
The ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies had challenged the policy on behalf of 11 individual asylum seekers and organizational plaintiffs Innovation Law Lab, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, Centro Legal de la Raza, the University of San Francisco School of Law Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, Al Otro Lado, and the Tahirih Justice Center.
Case background: https://www.aclu.org/cases/innovation-law-lab-v-wolf
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.
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Aid Groups Warn Excluding Lebanon From Ceasefire 'Risks Prolonging the Crisis'
"Until there is an end to all hostilities, across the entire region, no one will feel truly safe."
Apr 08, 2026
Humanitarian aid organizations warned Wednesday that the Iran ceasefire touted by US President Donald Trump as a monumental step toward peace is at risk of collapsing entirely if it doesn't halt Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, which reached its most intense phase yet in the hours after the two-week truce was announced.
David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said the ceasefire announcement late Tuesday was a "welcome step" but warned it was "partial, fragile, and incomplete," pointing to Trump and Israel's claim that Lebanon was not included in the deal's terms. Pakistan, the key mediator of the truce, has said Lebanon was part of the agreed-upon ceasefire, and a halt to Israeli attacks on the country was included in a widely circulated 10-point Iranian plan that Trump characterized as "a workable basis on which to negotiate."
Miliband said Wednesday that leaving "one front of the conflict burning risks prolonging the crisis, not resolving it."
Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, similarly warned that the current ceasefire deal, as implemented, "is not enough."
"We're urgently calling for a definitive ceasefire for the wider region, which includes Lebanon, to protect children from further harm," said Alhendawi. "A whole generation of children bears the brunt of this conflict. A definitive ceasefire for the entire regional conflict, including Lebanon, is the only way to truly protect children’s lives and futures and end the suffering. The violence must end before more children suffer irreparable harm.”
Iranian officials have responded with outrage to Israel's intensified assault on Lebanon, which has killed hundreds of people on Wednesday alone and wounded many more. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said the Trump administration "must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel."
"It cannot have both," he added. "The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments."
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Iran has informed regional mediators that its participation in planned in-person talks in Pakistan's capital "is conditional on a ceasefire in Lebanon" as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "continue to strike" the country.
"Sounds like somebody needs to rein in Israel ASAP," Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote on social media.
"The American people want this war to end and bombing downtown Beirut is not a path to peace."
Trump insisted to a PBS reporter on Wednesday that Lebanon was "not included in the deal," claiming the Israeli assault on the country is "a separate skirmish."
But top Iranian officials, aid organizations, and US lawmakers who support a lasting peace agreement view the conflicts across the region as interconnected.
“Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, aerospace commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday.
US Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) urged the Trump administration "must immediately make clear to Israel that the ceasefire agreement is not and cannot be functional without a ceasefire in Lebanon."
"The American people want this war to end," Beyer added, "and bombing downtown Beirut is not a path to peace."
Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, said in a statement that "until there is an end to all hostilities, across the entire region, no one will feel truly safe."
"Israel’s ongoing invasion in Lebanon, its destructive occupation of Palestinian territory, ground incursion and airstrikes in Syria, its continued attacks in Gaza, and violent attacks and territorial expansion in the West Bank are still continuing despite the provisional cessation of violence with Iran," said Behar. "This deadly toll across the Middle East is intolerable and must stop."
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'The Cover-Up Continues': Fury as DOJ Says Pam Bondi Won't Testify at Epstein Hearing
"She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress," said Rep. Robert Garcia.
Apr 08, 2026
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers reacted with outage on Wednesday after the US Department of Justice said former Attorney General Pam Bondi would no longer be required to testify before the House Oversight Committee next week.
Bondi had been subpoenaed to testify on April 14 about her handling of criminal case files related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
However, the DOJ said in a letter sent to the committee on Wednesday that she didn't have to comply with its congressional subpoena because she is no longer attorney general, having been fired by President Donald Trump earlier this month.
This prompted an angry response from Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Oversight Committee, who said that Bondi didn't get out of her obligation to testify just because she had been ousted from her position by the president.
"Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the attorney general or not," Garcia emphasized. "She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress. The survivors deserve justice."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) led the congressional effort to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files, also refused to accept the justification for canceling Bondi's testimony.
"The cover-up continues," Khanna wrote in a social media post, "but we will fight for accountability."
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) reminded the former AG that complying with congressional subpoenas was not optional.
"Just because Pam Bondi got fired, doesn't mean that she's no longer accountable for her role in the White House cover-up of the Epstein files," she wrote. "She MUST come to testify before the Oversight Committee or be held in contempt of Congress. This is far from over."
Democrats weren't the only ones fuming over the DOJ's letter, as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) also refused to back down on compelling Bondi to testify.
"Pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of attorney general," Mace wrote. "Our motion to subpoena Pam Bondi, which was passed by the Oversight Committee, was for Bondi by name, not by title. She will still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for a sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers, and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set."
Bondi has come under fire in recent months for not only her handling of the Epstein files, but her compliance with Trump’s demands to file criminal charges against political enemies including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.
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Iran Blocks Strait of Hormuz as 'Barbaric' Israeli Bombing Kills Hundreds in Lebanon
One senior Iranian official said his country is considering resuming strikes to put Israel's "aggressor regime in its place," while others warned Iran might quit the shaky ceasefire altogether.
Apr 08, 2026
Iran said Wednesday that it is blocking shipping through the Strait of Hormuz over Israel's escalating bombardment of Lebanon, actions that are threatening to unravel the tenuous ceasefire agreed to less than a day ago.
Fars, an Iranian state media outlet, reported that “simultaneous with Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has been stopped," while Reuters said that "more than 180 tankers believed to be inside [the] strait, with hundreds more waiting" for access.
The developments came after two tankers were reportedly allowed to pass through the vital waterway—through which around 20% of the world's oil is shipped—in the wake of Tuesday's ceasefire agreement between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
While Israel accepted the two-week truce, it insists that the agreement does not apply to its ongoing war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran counters that halting attacks on Lebanon is one of the 10 points in the Pakistan-brokered deal, which Israel is violating.
Over the past 24 hours, Israeli forces have ramped up their already intense bombing of Lebanon to levels described as "apocalyptic." Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least 254 people have been killed and 1,165 others wounded by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombing throughout the country, with some official sources telling media outlets that as many as 300 people have been killed.
More than 100 sites across Lebanon were reportedly bombed within a period of just minutes, including densely populated urban areas. In southern Lebanon, the dead include 12 medics, according to officials cited by Reuters.
Israeli forces have targeted civilian structures including apartment towers, claiming without providing evidence they were being used by Hezebollah.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Wednesday implored sympathetic nations to put pressure on Israel to stop the bombing.
"All of Lebanon's friends are called upon to help us stop these attacks by all available means," he said.
Iran's Press TV reported Wednesday that Iranian leaders are considering resuming full-scale counterattacks in response to Israel's escalation. According to the outlet, a senior Iranian official said that the time has come to "put this aggressor regime in its place."
Iranian and international media outlets also reported Wednesday that Iran might withdraw from the ceasefire altogether if Israel keeps bombing Lebanon.
“The conditions for a ceasefire between Iran and the United States are clear and explicit: America must choose either a ceasefire or the continuation of war through Israel; both cannot coexist,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on Telegram. “The world is witnessing the killings in Lebanon. Now the ball is in America’s court, and global public opinion is watching to see whether this country will fulfill its commitments or not.”
In a Wednesday interview with Al Jazeera, Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg described Israel's intensified attacks on Lebanon as “a pyrotechnics show meant to demonstrate Israel’s effectiveness while ultimately demonstrating its despair."
“The only entity that can stop it is the international community that will defend Lebanon’s sovereign rights, which have been violated for decades but are now almost nonexistent,” he said.
Goldberg added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "bet it all" on US President Donald Trump and "lost."
Some Israeli leaders, especially on the far-right, are reportedly furious over their exclusion from Trump's decision to suspend attacks on Iran.
"He thought he could keep Trump on a short leash," Goldberg said of Netanyahu. "He messed that up. So now what he has is Lebanon, which has been Israel’s favorite stomping ground in terms of sovereignty violation and aggression generally."
Since the 1980s, Israeli forces have killed more than 20,000 people, many of them civilians, in Lebanon. Israeli forces have occupied parts of Lebanon several times, including for the last 18 years of the 20th century. Some right-wing Israelis want their country to conquer some or even all of Lebanon, which they consider part of a "Greater Israel" promised to them by their deity figure.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz—who, like Netanyahu, stands accused in an International Court of Justice case of inciting genocide in Gaza—said Wednesday that "the IDF carried out a surprise strike on hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists at command centers across Lebanon" in what he called "the largest concentrated blow Hezbollah has suffered since Operation Beepers," when dozens of people including children were killed by booby-trapped exploding communication devices.
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Katz's predecessor, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, where 29 months of Israeli war and siege have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and the Gaza Strip in ruins. More than 700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect there six months ago.
Regional and international observers condemned Israel's escalation in Lebanon, which Iraqi government spokesperson Bassem al-Awadi called "evidence of its hostile plan to sabotage the truce" and "perpetuate conflict."
Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community "to fulfill its responsibilities by compelling the Israeli occupation authorities to halt their barbaric massacres and repeated attacks on Lebanon, and to hold them accountable for respecting international covenants and laws.”
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