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DC Takes Trump to Court For Unlawful Takeover of Police
This morning, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit against President Trump over the president taking control of the city’s police department, in what the Washington Post describes as “one of the most extraordinary exertions of federal power in the city’s half-century of home rule.”
In response, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:
“We applaud D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Attorney General Brian Schwalb for standing up to this administration’s wild and unprecedented abuse of power. Declaring a fake emergency and placing our capital city under what looks like a military occupation has furthered the dystopian reality of this moment. Donald Trump is an authoritarian president who is intent on dismantling the core safeguards of power-sharing in our democracy, and his actions must be resisted by every American of conscience.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
5th Circuit Strikes Down Louisiana Legislative Maps Racially Gerrymandered by GOP
One ACLU attorney said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy."
Aug 15, 2025
In what the ACLU called "a victory for Black voters and democracy in Louisiana," a three-judge panel of the staunchly conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling that struck down the state's racially rigged legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act.
The panel agreed in Nairne v. Landry that Louisiana's state Senate and House of Representatives new maps, enacted in 2022, "dilute the voting strength of Black Louisianans in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
The maps do so, the court wrote, "by 'packing' Black voters into a small number of majority-Black districts and 'cracking' other Black communities across multiple districts, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to form effective voting blocs."
The panel—whose members were appointed by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden—also found "no basis" supporting Louisiana's assertion that conditions had changed enough in the state to negate the need for race-minded remedies.
🚨Big Win for Black Voters in Louisiana! ️Today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a critical victory by upholding a lower court’s decision that struck down Louisiana’s state legislative maps for unlawfully diluting Black voting power.www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Black Voters Matter Fund (@blackvotersmatterfund.org) August 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Louisiana must now redraw legislative maps that better reflect the demography of a state in which nearly one-third of the population is Black but roughly just a quarter of its legislative districts are majority African American. However, there is a stay on the redraw until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which involves the state's racially rigged congressional map.
"I am beyond elated for this powerful win of Nairne v. Landry that touches all of Louisiana, including rural areas like Assumption Parish, where transformation has been nonexistent for far too long," plaintiff Dorothy Nairne said in a statement.
"Our people are ready to roar through our votes using legislative maps that truly represent us all," she added. "This victory ignites our desire to be involved, to uplift ourselves, and to shape the future our ancestors dreamed of."
Another plaintiff in the case, Alice Washington, said that "a unanimous win is incredible as the court clearly held Louisiana must have maps where Black voters have a fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice. We are advancing our state to a more perfect place and hopefully will inspire all to want to live here."
Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana—which represents case plaintiffs—said that the panel "has affirmed what we've always known, Black voters in Louisiana deserve equal representation."
"This is a vital step toward correcting generations of injustice, and we will not stop until every Black Louisianan has the full and fair representation guaranteed to all Americans," Odoms added.
ACLU Voting Rights Project staff attorney Megan Keenan said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy. The court recognized the reality that many Black voters in Louisiana have been denied full and fair representation."
ANOTHER WIN: 5th Circuit Sides with Black Louisianians, Strikes Down Racially Discriminatory State Mapwww.naacpldf.org/press-releas...
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— Janai Nelson (@janainelson.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 2:20 PM
The Legal Defense Fund also represents plaintiffs in the case. LDF assistant counsel Sara Rohani lauded "the strength and resilience of Black communities across Louisiana who have fought for years to be fairly recognized, represented, and heard."
"Fair representation is not optional in Louisiana," Rohani added. "Today's decision reaffirms that the state must pass fair and nondiscriminatory maps to comply with the Voting Rights Act. We look forward to rectifying another example of Louisiana's long history of racial voter suppression."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, condemned Thursday's ruling, telling the Louisiana Illuminator that "we are reviewing our options with a focus on stability in our elections and preserving state and judicial resources while the [US] Supreme Court resolves related issues."
One of those issues involves Louisiana's congressional map, which was drawn by Republican state lawmakers to include just one majority Black district. The justices are set to hear that case, Callais v. Landry, as well as the closely related Louisiana v. Callais—which differ in procedural postures—during the high court's upcoming term.
These battles in Louisiana come as the Voting Rights Act turns 60 amid numerous Republican attacks on the landmark legislation. GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country have enacted racially rigged congressional maps, imposed restrictions on voter registration, reduced early voting options, and passed voter identification laws. These measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some GOP officials have admitted that they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.
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'Fight the Trump Takeover' Protests Against GOP Election-Rigging Plot Planned for Saturday
"This fight is bigger than any one state," said the chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus.
Aug 15, 2025
Nationwide protests against US President Donald Trump's scheme to get Republican state legislatures to redraw their congressional maps are set to kick off this weekend.
The "Fight the Trump Takeover" movement is planning a national day of action on Saturday, August 16 that will feature coast-to-coast demonstrations from as far east as Lubec, Maine, to as far west as Anchorage, Alaska.
"Trump is trying to steal the 2026 election by rigging the system and changing electoral maps," the coalition behind the protests said on its website. "He started in Texas, but he won’t stop there. We are fighting back."
The protests are being done in partnership with several prominent progressive groups, including Indivisible, MoveOn, Human Rights Campaign, Public Citizen, and the Communication Workers of America. Some Texas-specific groups—including Texas Freedom Network, Texas AFL-CIO, and Texas for All—are also partners in the protest.
Axios reports that an "anchor rally" in Austin, Texas will kick off the nationwide events and will feature speakers including Democratic US Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, as well as former Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke and labor activist Dolores Huerta.
The location of the Austin rally is symbolically important because Texas is trying to become the first state to redraw its maps to benefit Republicans under Trump's nationwide gerrymandering scheme, which in the coming weeks could include states such as Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and Missouri.
Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu told Axios that "this fight is bigger than any one state" because "we're defending our entire country from the Trump takeover, and I'm honored to stand with every patriotic American who refuses to let extremists rig the system."
Ezra Levin, the co-founder and co-executive director of progressive organizing group Indivisible, told Axios that Trump's plan "is as crooked as it gets" and described it as part of a larger plot to "lock in minority rule for a generation."
Democratic-controlled states, led by California under Gov. Gavin Newsom, have started to fight back against the Trump plan by proposing their own redrawn maps aimed at squeezing out Republicans in their states. Newsom this week held a big rally in Los Angeles with other California Democratic heavyweights where he stressed the need for Democrats to give Republicans a taste of their own medicine.
"It's not enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, and talk about way the world should be," Newsom said at the rally. "We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire!"
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Vast Majority of 'Refugees' Accepted Under New Trump Plan Will Be White South Africans
"The Trump administration has sent a dangerous message," one refugee wrote, "that in a multiracial democracy, the loss of white dominance is equivalent to persecution."
Aug 15, 2025
The administration of US President Donald Trump is reportedly discussing a refugee program that would grant the majority of admissions to the white South African minority that ruled the country through apartheid for decades.
Reuters reported Friday that the administration was mulling a cap of 40,000 refugees entering the United States next year, down from the 100,000 allowed in by former President Joe Biden.
According to two officials, who spoke with Reuters anonymously, "30,000 of the 40,000 spaces would be devoted to Afrikaners, a largely Dutch-descended minority in South Africa that Trump has prioritized for resettlement."
At the end of 2024, the United Nations Refugee Agency reported that there were nearly 43 million people worldwide recognized as refugees, who are forced to flee their home countries due to violence, persecution, or human rights violations.
Among them are:
- Nearly 6 million Syrians forced to flee deprivation, violence, and persecution amid the country's decade of brutal civil war;
- 6 million Afghans facing persecution after the Taliban returned to power in 2021;
- Over 4 million Sudanese and South Sudanese people displaced by war and famine;
- 1.3 million refugees from Myanmar, including the Rohingya, who are fleeing what is recognized by the US as a genocide; and
- The million and growing Haitians fleeing the gang warfare that has overtaken their impoverished nation.
At the beginning of his second term, Trump emphatically slammed the door on all of these groups, indefinitely suspending the US Refugee Admissions Program and halting the process for about 600,000 refugees who were being considered for admission and thousands who'd been approved.
He also shut down CBP One, the application allowing asylum-seekers fleeing violence and poverty to apply for entry at the Southern border legally, and revoked the legal status of millions of people in the country under humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), many of whom now face deportation.
While turning away countless millions facing death and danger, Trump has welcomed Afrikaners, the minority group that implemented and enforced a racist and anti-democratic system of apartheid that deprived Black people of their rights in South Africa until 1994.
Trump is a proponent of the false theory that, since the end of apartheid, South Africa's democratically elected Black government has systematically oppressed and allowed for the murder of white farmers, referring to it as a "genocide."
That theory has been bolstered by Trump's billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is also a white South African. Earlier this year, the artificial intelligence chatbot on his social media platform X, known as "Grok," began to inexplicably discuss so-called "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated prompts, which led many to speculate that Musk had programmed it to amplify the conspiracy theory.
However, as Joe Walsh, a white journalist from South Africa, noted in an article for Current Affairs last year, South Africa's Black population is killed at 10 times the rate of its white population.
In large part due to the legacy of apartheid, white South Africans also have 20 times the wealth of Black ones and hold the vast majority of land in the country despite being just over 7% of the population.
Meanwhile, white South African organizations like AfriForum have argued that efforts by the current government to more equitably distribute land constitute a form of racial discrimination and even genocide against whites.
"The myth's purpose," Walsh wrote, "is to make it seem dangerous to have Black people in control of the government."
But it's a myth with purchase in the White House. While virtually every other refugee group was left in limbo, Trump wrote on Truth Social in April that "Any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship. This process will begin immediately!"
In May, 59 Afrikaners arrived at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, where the Trump administration celebrated their arrival.
Bill Frelick, director of Human Rights Watch's Refugee and Migrant Rights program, told PBS News, "There were refugees who had been identified, vetted, who had spent years as refugees, and their hopes for admission to the United States after years of suffering had been crushed."
"That now the one exception would be made for Afrikaners," he said, "just seems like a cruel twist to those refugees to whom the door was closed in their face."
Last month, Reuters reported that a senior official from the State Department told the government of South Africa that it was not allowed to process refugees of mixed-race descent who spoke the Afrikaans language for entry into the US. The official said that the resettlement program was only "intended for white people."
In The Hill, opinion contributor Lok Darjee—himself a Bhutanese refugee who fled war in 2011—has described the Trump administration's embrace of white South Africans over other refugees as emblematic of its "racist ideology."
"By admitting white South Africans as refugees and victims of racial persecution," Darjee said, "the Trump administration has sent a dangerous message that in a multiracial democracy, the loss of white dominance is equivalent to persecution."
"In this narrative, South Africa becomes a warning of what awaits the United States should Black and nonwhite Americans gain political power," he continued. "As America becomes a more diverse nation, those who equate whiteness with greatness see this shift not as progress, but as a threat."
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