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For Immediate Release
July, 22 2025, 03:02pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,press@civilrights.org,Phone: (202) 869-0398
The Leadership Conference Denounces Confirmation of Joshua Divine
Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program and an advisor at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Senate confirmed Joshua Divine to serve on the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri:
“Federal judges must be fair-minded and ethical, highly qualified, and committed to civil and human rights. The Senate’s confirmation of Joshua Divine to the federal bench in Missouri betrays these standards and instead installs into a lifetime judgeship an individual who does not possess the requisite experience to be a federal judge and who has time and time again demonstrated significant hostility to our civil and human rights. His limited legal career — which includes a record of intense opposition to reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, student loan borrowers, and more — is disqualifying. Our courts, our communities, and our democracy deserve better. Senators must ensure that judicial nominees are fair-minded, actually qualified for the job, and faithful to the rule of law and Constitution rather than to an anti-civil rights agenda.”
Read The Leadership Conference’s letter in opposition to Joshua Divine’s confirmation here.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. Through advocacy and outreach to targeted constituencies, The Leadership Conference works toward the goal of a more open and just society - an America as good as its ideals.
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Florida Voters Sue Over Trump-DeSantis 'Gerrymander on Top of an Already Egregious Gerrymander'
"This should be a clear-cut case, and all Floridians should see justice for this blatant attempt to reduce their rightful voting power even more than before," said the head of one voting rights group.
May 04, 2026
As Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday did his part to advance President Donald Trump's gerrymandering spree by signing a rigged congressional map into law, state voters swiftly sued over the newly drawn districts.
"Signed, Sealed, Delivered," DeSantis posted on social media Monday, celebrating Florida's new US House of Representatives map that's expected to give the GOP a 24-4 advantage, up from 20-8. It's part of Trump's campaign to redraw districts in various Republican-governed states in hopes of keeping control of both chambers of Congress.
Meanwhile, Floridians supported by the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) and the Equal Ground Education Fund filed a lawsuit against the state Legislature and Secretary of State Cory Byrd over the map in the Circuit Court of Leon County.
"In 2010, the people of Florida voted overwhelmingly to enact the Fair Districts Amendment to the state's constitution, imposing constraints on the worst abuses of congressional redistricting and entrusting the Florida judiciary to enforce those safeguards," notes the complaint, which goes on to highlight a map tossed out by the Florida Supreme Court in 2015.
The filing also lays out the current battle initiated by Trump last year: He pressured Texas Republicans to redraw their state's US House map. North Carolina and Missouri's GOP leaders followed suit, prompting voters in California and Virginia to support drawing new districts that favor Democrats, who aim to reclaim congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.
The complaint then lays out DeSantis' monthslong push to redraw Florida's districts to appease the increasingly authoritarian president, in violation of the state constitution. It stresses that recent "changes to Florida's congressional plan come on the heels of a 2022 redistricting plan that already substantially advantaged Republicans."
The state's new map "is, by traditional measures of partisan gerrymandering, one of the most extreme gerrymanders in American history," the document declares. It was "made by professionals with sophisticated tools and a clear partisan goal: to pack and crack Democratic voters with surgical precision and deprive Florida voters of a fair map guaranteed to them by the Florida Constitution."
The Democratic and unregistered Florida voters behind the case, who live in various districts, asked the court to block the latest rigged map from being used in this year's election and strike it down completely.
"Florida's mid-decade gerrymander is a blatant violation of the state's constitution," said NAF executive director Marina Jenkins in a statement. "This map is a gerrymander on top of an already egregious gerrymander that cracks apart numerous districts in nonsensical ways with the intent to favor one party over another."
"Given the clear violations of state law, this should be a clear-cut case," Jenkins added, "and all Floridians should see justice for this blatant attempt to reduce their rightful voting power even more than before."
The plaintiffs are represented by the Orlando-based firm King, Blackwell, Zehnder, & Wermuth as well as Elias Law Group, which was founded by Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias.
Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, and US House Democratic Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also spoke out against the new state map on Monday.
"The lame-duck governor of Florida is auditioning for Donald Trump's undying love after his presidential aspirations were crushed in 2024," Jeffries said in a statement. "Democrats have brutally thwarted the MAGA midterm power grab, and we will continue to push back aggressively. Today, less than a week after corrupt Republican legislators approved an unconstitutional partisan map leaked to a right-wing news outlet, Ron DeSanctimonious signed it into law."
"By his own lawyer's admission, these boundaries were drawn with partisan intent, a shameless disregard for Florida voters who overwhelmingly passed the Fair Districts Amendment to bar political favoritism and incumbent protection in 2010," Jeffries emphasized. "Ron DeSantis knows this gerrymander is a direct violation of Florida law."
As Politico reported Monday
A top aide for the GOP governor acknowledged last week that he relied on political data as part of his map drawing effort—a potential violation of "Fair Districts" standards.
Attorneys for DeSantis contended that these anti-gerrymandering standards no longer needed to be followed because the state Supreme Court last year ruled that the minority voter protections that were also part of the same amendment did not need to be strictly followed. They said the amendment was a "package" that could not be broken apart.
DeSantis and his Republican allies have also cited Florida's growth as a reason to redraw the lines, but the new map relies on the same 2020 US Census data that was used in the current map, which has been approved by both state and federal courts.
The fight playing out in Florida comes after the US Supreme Court last week gutted the remnants of the Voting Rights Act in a battle over Louisiana's congressional map that preceded Trump's gerrymandering campaign. Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry responded by suspending a primary election already underway, sparking lawsuits from civil rights groups and voters.
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Trump Admin Shutters DHS Watchdog Amid Rampant and Growing Detainee Abuse
Last year was the deadliest in ICE detention in about two decades, with more than 30 deaths reported in custody. So far this year, at least 18 more detainees had reportedly died in ICE custody.
May 04, 2026
The US Department of Homeland Security is officially closing its watchdog for immigrant detention abuse, even as reports of excessive force, deadly neglect, and other maltreatment by agency personnel soar under the Trump administration.
Citing an internal email, Huffpost's Dave Jamieson reported Monday that DHS is shutting down its Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), which was established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020 as part the massive federal spending package known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act.
Jamieson added that the communication said that OIDO "is in the process of removing all its public signage and ending its inspection," and that the agency's website was down.
The email attributed OIDO's closure to a lack of federal funding in the Homeland Security appropriations package that ended the recent 76-day shutdown affecting the agency.
Largely pushed through by congressional Democrats, OIDO was designed to be independent from both US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection. The office was given the power to receive detainee complaints, investigate alleged abuse or misconduct, inspect detention facilities, and report systemic problems to DHS leaders and Congress.
OIDO emerged amid widespread abuse of detained migrants during the first Trump administration, including deaths in custody, family separation, overcrowding, and other mistreatment.
Since returning to office for a second term, Trump has overseen the dismantling of the agency, arguing that it hinders immigration enforcement. The administration's effort to dilute OIDO's power have triggered legal action arguing that, since it was created by Congress, the agency cannot be abolished without congressional consent.
DHS detainees—especially those ICE lockups—report abuses including inadequate or delayed medical care; physical attacks and excessive force; sexual abuse and harassment; solitary confinement misuse; overcrowded and unsanitary conditions; intimidation and retaliation following complaints; abuse of pregnant women and children; denial of access to lawyers; denial of family contact; and denial of food, water, hygiene, or medication.
Last year was the deadliest in ICE detention in about two decades, with more than 30 deaths reported in custody. So far this year, at least 18 more detainees had reportedly died in ICE custody.
18 people have died in ICE detention this year—and the administration is illegally "closing" OIDO, the office that is supposed to monitor detention conditions and help detained people needing medical care or suffering abuse.Its portal, myoido.dhs.gov, is offline.
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— Adam Isacson (@adamisacson.com) May 4, 2026 at 3:19 PM
OIDO isn't the only DHS watchdog under attack by the Trump administration. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman have also been targeted.
One former CRCL employee who was placed on administrative leave due to funding cuts said in a recent court filing that the agency is unable to conduct “meaningful investigations” into alleged civil rights and civil liberties violations committed by its personnel. As an example, they noted the accusations of excessive force by the ICE agent who fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good last year.
“In my experience, investigations into systemic issues like these required significant staff resources, which CRCL no longer has to devote to these important issues of civil rights and civil liberties,” the official told Federal News Network earlier this year. “Nor does CRCL have the resources to conduct multidisciplinary onsite investigations at detention facilities, the need for which is greater than it has ever been as both the number of detention facilities and number of people detained has skyrocketed."
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‘Worst Conceivable Representative’: Inequality Opponents Condemn Bezos Sponsorship of Met Gala
"It's a thin line between celebrating glamor and artwashing extreme wealth," said the Tax Justice Network.
May 04, 2026
As celebrities prepared to attend the 2026 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Monday, a coalition of nearly three dozen civil society groups warned that with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—currently the fourth-richest person on Earth—chairing the annual fundraiser, the gala risks "artwashing the harms of extreme wealth."
Groups including Greenpeace International, Patriotic Millionaires, and War on Want signed a letter organized by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, calling on the museum and Vogue magazine, which hosts the event, not to honor Bezos and warning that the billionaire is using the two cultural institutions as tools "to launder his public image."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a celebrated collection of art spanning centuries, many of it made "in defiance of power—work that exposed injustice, gave voice to the silenced, and held the powerful to account," reads the letter.
But the tech mogul chosen to chair the gala "has made his loyalties clear" since President Donald Trump first took office in 2017 and during the Republican's second term, said the groups, pointing to Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post, the mass firing of hundreds of the newspaper's reporters this year, and his remaking of the publication's opinion section into one focusing on "free markets."
He "gutted" the Post "while reportedly pouring $75 million into a film promoting Melania Trump," reads the letter, referring to the Amazon-produced documentary film Melania.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes."
"He is not just a bystander to Trump’s administration," wrote the organizations. "He is one of its enablers. This is not philanthropy. This effectively is influence bought and paid for by Bezos’ pocket change—and the Met Gala is his latest purchase."
The groups added that in addition to aligning himself with the White House through his ownership of the Post, Bezos and Amazon—a government contractor where he is still the largest individual shareholder—is working with Trump to "make possible a concentration of power that not only threatens lives in the US but across the world as well."
"While so many of these policies aren’t new, they have been exacerbated under Trump and with the help of people like Bezos—from families torn apart by ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids reportedly enabled by Amazon's own technology, to a White House emboldened to threaten and carry out military action against sovereign nations without consequence—including to ‘destroy a whole civilization’ in Iran—with no accountability," reads the letter.
The Tax Justice Network, one of the signatories, emphasized that just a fraction of the money that goes to the $100,000-per ticket Met Gala could alleviate the economic inequality that's grown worse under the Trump administration.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes," said the Tax Justice Network, citing its analysis released Monday.
Bezos is among the billionaires who have contributed donations to Trump's pet projects—a luxury ballroom and a 250-foot-tall arch in Washington, DC—while the president has tried to cut the home energy assistance program, said the group.
“There’s a thin line between celebrating glamorous fashion and artwashing extreme wealth, and that line gets bulldozed when your poster boy is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects and a top spender on anti-worker lobbying,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.
In the first two hours of the Met Gala, Cobham added, "Bezos’s wealth will grow by the equivalent of 130,000 hours of a teacher’s labor... This extreme distortion throws economies out of whack. Our economies are supposed to let people earn the wealth they need to lead secure and comfortable lives, but most countries’ tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it."
It's a thin line between celebrating glamor & artwashing extreme wealth. That line gets bulldozed when your patron is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects & a top spender on antiworker lobbying. Don't let Bezos artwash his at the Met Gala taxjustice.net/press/2-tax-...
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— Tax Justice Network (@taxjustice.net) May 4, 2026 at 3:25 AM
"In Bezos’ case, it’s easy to see how that undertaxed collected wealth goes towards lobbying further against workers’ rights and pay, while his company Amazon remains one of the biggest recipients of US subsidies," said Cobham.
According to the Tax Justice Network's analysis, Bezos accumulated $3.8 million every house from 2023-25, when his total wealth grew by more than $100 billion.
"If Bezos were to continue to accumulate wealth at this rate," said the group, "he would accumulate $7.6 million in the first two hours of the Met Gala event, which is the equivalent of 110 NYC Public Schools teachers’ starting salaries"—$68,902.
Those organizing the gala can and must "stop celebrating those destroying our countries and humanity itself," reads the letter sent by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, by not honoring Bezos and backing the fair taxation of the wealthiest households and corporations.
"End the oligarchy," reads the letter. "Tax the super rich. Now."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a proponent of taxing the rich to pay for crucial public programs and services, planned to skip the Met Gala in a break with tradition. Last month Mamdani announced plans for a tax on second homes valued at $5 million or more in New York City.
Celebrities who are reportedly planning to skip the event include Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid, who has spoken out against ICE and in favor of Palestinian rights, and actress Zendaya.
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