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legal defense fund
Court Lands Latest Blow to Trump's 'Anti-Voting Agenda' by Blocking USPS Attack on Mailed Ballots
“USPS’ plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy," said one case litigant.
Jul 01, 2026
In a ruling hailed by democracy defenders, a federal court on Wednesday halted the US Postal Service's implementation of President Donald Trump's March executive order targeting mail-in ballots as part of his administration's broader attack on voting rights.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted a request by the NAACP to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement requiring the USPS to protect mail-in voting and prioritize delivery of mail related to elections through 2028.
The request followed the Postal Service's publication last month of a proposed rule that would block the delivery of mail-in ballots to voters in states where election officials refused to provide certain information to USPS or use a specific envelope design. That proposal came after Trump's March executive order directing federal agencies to create a nationwide list of eligible voters using federal data.
The directive also requires the Postal Service to verify that mail-in ballots are sent and returned only by eligible voters, preserve election-related records for a longer period, and exercise heightened oversight of mailed ballots.
The Public Citizen Litigation Group and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a motion on behalf of the NAACP asserting that the proposed rule "manifests USPS’ intent not to deliver certain mail-in ballots, establishing a process that directly violates its obligations under the agreement."
“The court today correctly recognized that USPS’ plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail,” Public Citizen Litigation Group director Allison Zieve said in a statement following Sullivan's ruling. “USPS’ plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.”
🚨BREAKING: In the latest blow to President Donald Trump’s anti-voting agenda, a federal court on Wednesday granted the NAACP’s request to halt the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) implementation of his executive order against mail voting. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) July 1, 2026 at 1:41 PM
LDF associate director-counsel Sam Spital said, “Today’s decision recognizes that USPS cannot disregard its legal obligation to timely deliver mail-in ballots to all voters."
"We are glad that the court blocked a blatant attempt to renege on this commitment through a proposed rule that ran the risk of undermining the fairness of our national elections, creating particular dangers for Black voters," Spital continued. "LDF will continue to defend our democracy and combat unlawful restrictions of the right to vote.”
Anthony P. Ashton, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP, called the decision "a critical step in protecting the rights of voters who rely on the timely delivery of mail-in ballots to participate in our democracy."
Ashton continued:
The proposed USPS changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers, in direct violation of the USPS’ mandate to prioritize election mail. Those barriers could have disproportionately harmed Black voters, who are more likely to rely on mail voting due to long-standing inequities in access. Put simply, the use of mail-in voting helps reduce voter intimidation at the polls and election day dirty tricks. This decision makes clear that access to the ballot cannot be tied to arbitrary requirements. The NAACP will continue to hold this government accountable when it attempts to undermine fair and equal access to the electoral process.
Wednesday's order—from a judge who's been appointed to various positions by Republican and Democratic presidents throughout his career—is the latest in a string of federal court rulings against Trump's attacks on voting rights, crowned by Monday's Watson v. Republican National Committee US Supreme Court decision, in which the justices affirmed that states may count ballots received after Election Day if they were postmarked in time.
Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with Democratic state attorneys who challenged Trump's March 2025 executive order that requires Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, while another judge in the same district blocked parts of the president's March 2026 order, which included the USPS directive.
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Trump Appointee With 'History of Discriminatory Practices' Confirmed to Fair Housing Role at HUD
"Millions of Americans already face barriers to housing," said the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. "Appointing someone trying to dismantle civil rights protections will only cause more harm."
Oct 10, 2025
After reports that the Trump administration has gutted its enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, civil rights and housing advocates are warning that the president's newly confirmed appointee to lead the office responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws will seek to further erode civil rights protections.
On Tuesday, the US Senate confirmed Craig Trainor—as part of a group of 107 nominees to various executive posts—to be assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The office is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws, including laws that prohibit housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, and sex.
Upon his confirmation, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund (LDF) described Trainor as someone "with a history of discriminatory practices."
With a history of discriminatory practices, Craig Trainor has been confirmed as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.Millions of Americans already face barriers to housing. Appointing someone trying to dismantle civil rights protections will only cause more harm.
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— Legal Defense Fund (@legaldefensefund.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Since February, Trainor has worked as the acting assistant secretary of the Department of Education's (DOE) Office of Civil Rights (OCR). The National Fair Housing Alliance said that during his tenure in the Education Department, Trainor "has overseen the illegal weaponization of the Department's civil rights authorities for purposes contrary to the advancement of civil rights."
Demetria McCain, the director of policy at the LDF, says "Trainor advanced a radical and inaccurate view of civil rights law that was blocked by federal courts."
In February, Trainor sent a "Dear Colleague" letter describing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives pursued by colleges and K-12 schools as "illegal" forms of discrimination against white and Asian students and threatened federal funding for those that did not comply and reverse the policies.
The LDF sued the DOE in April, calling the effort an attempt "to prohibit and chill lawful efforts to ensure that Black students are afforded equal educational opportunities," and arguing that the DOE was "intentionally discriminating against Black students through its efforts to defund federal grantees based on erroneous facts and interpretations of law." Three federal courts sided with the LDF later that month and blocked Trainor's office from enforcing the demands in the letter.
In the meantime, the OCR also paused thousands of civil rights investigations into discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, and disability. Employees told ProPublica that they declined to open new investigations and were told to stop communicating with students, families, and schools involved in cases launched during previous administrations. One attorney said he and his colleagues had "been essentially muzzled."
Trainor would later unpause some investigations related to disabilities, but others remained on hold. Meanwhile, he launched new "discrimination" investigations, including one highly publicized case against Denver Public Schools for installing an all-gender restroom, which Trainor argued "appears to directly violate the civil rights of the district's female students."
In March and April of 2025, the OCR dismissed civil rights cases at an unprecedented rate of 89-91%, compared to the historic average of around 70%. Meanwhile, the number of cases in which violations were found dropped precipitously, from 200 per month during the Biden years to around 50-60 in April.
"Under the Trump administration, the OCR moved away from addressing systemic discrimination toward a narrower enforcement agenda aligned with the administration's political priorities," read an August report from the human rights group ImpACT International. "For instance, investigations into racial disparities in school discipline—which disproportionately affected Black students and those with disabilities—were deprioritized or outright abandoned. Simultaneously, the OCR shifted intense focus toward investigating transgender students, particularly targeting their participation in girls' and women's sports."
Mike Pillera, a former OCR attorney, said that under the new administration, "OCR is the most useless it's ever been, and it's the most dangerous it's ever been. And by useless, I mean unavailable. Unable to do the work."
In June, following Trainor's nomination for the Fair Housing Office, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled the official, noting that in 2021, he wrote an article titled "George Floyd and the Rise of the Rival Constitution," in which he described the 1964 Civil Rights Act as the catalyst for an "all-embracing ideology of diversity" that threatens the "actual Constitution," which he said he preferred.
Warren also noted that while serving on the New York Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, Trainor dismissed well-documented evidence of discriminatory evictions of minority tenants by New York landlords, suggesting that while it may have occurred "many decades in the past," it was not a problem today.
"It is deeply concerning that the Senate confirmed Craig Trainor to be the administration's top fair housing official without even holding an individualized vote, much less scrutinizing his troubling record," said NFHA Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey. "This administration has already attacked fair housing enforcement in many ways."
The appointment of Trainor to oversee the Office of Fair Housing comes just weeks after half a dozen whistleblowers told the New York Times that "Trump's political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs."
The majority of staff were axed or reassigned by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the early months of Trump's administration, leaving a skeleton crew to pursue fair housing cases. Staff, meanwhile, brought forward emails showing that Trump appointees systematically obstructed investigations.
Like in the DOE's civil rights office, hundreds of housing discrimination investigations were frozen, and employees were cut off from communication with clients who alleged mistreatment by landlords and banks. Meanwhile, senior officials pressured employees to stop pursuing cases related to decades-old discrimination precedents, such as appraisal bias and redlining that impact the ability of nonwhite families to sell and purchase homes.
Two of the whistleblowers, attorneys Palmer Heenan and Paul Osedebe, reported being fired shortly after the Times report and their complaint to Warren were made public.
Warren joined in criticizing the confirmation of Trainor, whom she noted "is currently being sued by the NAACP for civil rights violations at the Department of Education." His confirmation, she said, "comes just one week after the Trump administration fired and suspended whistleblowers who shared documents with my office describing the administration's systematic attack on civil rights protections in housing in the office Trainor will now lead."
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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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Federal Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order, But Fight 'Far From Over'
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," said a member of the legal team behind the class action suit.
Jul 10, 2025
The battle over U.S. President Donald Trump's attack on birthright citizenship continued on Thursday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire gave a green light to a class action lawsuit and blocked the Republican's contested executive order.
Advocacy groups including the ACLU, Asian Law Caucus, Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) launched the case last month, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority limited nationwide injunctions—often used by lower courts to stop seemingly illegal policies like Trump's birthright move—but declined to weigh in on the actual order, which three different district judges had blocked.
"The court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship."
Experts warn there will still be challenges to the class action route, but U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—gave the groups their first win in the new case, certifying "a nationwide class that protects the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil," with a seven-day delay to allow for an appeal from the Trump adminsitration.
"Class petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that class petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest," the judge wrote.
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project deputy director Cody Wofsy, who argued the case, said in a statement that "this ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended."
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," Wofsy declared.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus, noted that "since the Supreme Court's decision, parents have lived in fear and uncertainty, wondering whether they should give birth in a different state, whether their newborns would be subject to deportation, and what kind of future awaits their children."
BREAKING: Judge in new case challenging Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship grants class certification and blocks enforcement of the order. The injunction is stayed for seven days to allow any appeal.
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
LDF senior counsel Morenike Fajana called the district judge's decision "a powerful affirmation of the 14th Amendment and the enduring principle that citizenship in the United States is a right by birth, not a privilege granted by politics."
"By granting nationwide class certification and blocking the executive order from taking effect, the court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship," Fajana continued. "This is a critical victory for families across the country, and we will continue to defend the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law."
While welcoming Thursday's win for the plaintiffs, "and millions of families across this country, who deserve clarity, and stability," Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, also stressed that "the fight to uphold the guarantee of birthright citizenship is far from over, and we will continue to advocate to ensure we keep that promise."
Though not directly commenting on the judge's decision, the Trump administration signaled Thursday that it will keep fighting to end birthright citizenship and impose the other components of the president's anti-immigrant agenda.
"The Trump administration," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News ahead of the hearing, "is committed to lawfully implementing the president's executive order to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship and which restores the 14th Amendment to its original intent."
After Thursday's ruling, according to the news outlet,
the Department of Justice referred NBC News to a previous statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi last week that followed another judge's order in a separate immigration case, saying a "rogue district court judge is already trying to circumvent the Supreme Court's recent ruling against nationwide injunctions." Bondi added in that statement, "the American people see right through this" and that Department of Justice attorneys will continue to fight for Trump's agenda to secure the U.S. border.
Bondi's statement last week was in response to a judge in Washington, D.C. blocking Trump's crackdown on asylum-seekers.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who argued that case, said at the time that the "hugely important decision" will "save the lives of families fleeing grave danger" and "reaffirms that the president cannot ignore the laws Congress has passed and the most basic premise of our country's separation of powers."
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DOJ Slammed for Ending Efforts to Tackle Racist Policing
One critic called the move "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
May 22, 2025
Racial justice advocates decried Wednesday's announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that it will end law enforcement reform and accountability efforts, including the Biden administration's agreements with the cities of Minneapolis and Louisville—a move that came just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis cop.
The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division said it is dropping lawsuits against the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments and ending pending consent decrees—court-enforceable agreements under which law enforcement agencies commit to reform—with the two cities. The deals, which have been submitted to judges for approval, have been held up in federal court as the Trump administration has sought to block their implementation.
The Civil Rights Division said it "will also be closing its investigations into, and retracting the Biden administration's findings of constitutional violations on the part of," the Louisiana State Police and police departments in Phoenix; Memphis; Oklahoma City; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York.
To “disappear” DOJ findings like this is the most disturbing and disgraceful part. A key advantage of DOJ pattern & practice investigations is that DOJ has the resources to absorb the cost of generating the findings that indiv civ rights groups suing police depts find onerous & often prohibitive.
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— Sherrilyn Ifill ( @sifill.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represents the families of George Floyd—murdered by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020—and Breoanna Taylor, who was killed earlier that year by Louisville police, called the DOJ announcement a "slap in the face."
"Just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder—a moment that galvanized a global movement for justice—the U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to turn its back on the very communities it pledged to protect," Crump said in a statement Wednesday.
"By walking away from consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, and closing its investigation into the Memphis Police Department while retracting findings of serious constitutional violations, the DOJ is not just rolling back reform, it is attempting to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands," he asserted.
"These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures, they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organizing, suffering, and advocacy," Crump continued, adding that the DOJ's moves "will only deepen the divide between law enforcement and the people they are sworn to protect and serve."
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) lamented the DOJ move and accused the Trump administration of acting "like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's lives didn't mean a damn thing."
Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said his city would proceed with reforms despite the DOJ's announcement, while questioning the move's timing.
"The Trump administration is a mess. It is predictable that they would move for a dismissal the very same week that George Floyd was murdered five years ago," he said. "What this shows is that all [President] Donald Trump really cares about is political theater."
The DOJ claimed the Biden administration falsely accused the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments of "widespread patterns of unconstitutional policing practices by wrongly equating statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily relying on flawed methodologies and incomplete data."
"These sweeping consent decrees would have imposed years of micromanagement of local police departments by federal courts and expensive independent monitors, and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs, without a legally or factually adequate basis for doing so," the agency argued.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon—the conspiracy theorist who heads the Civil Rights Division despite, or perhaps because of, her troubled history of working against voting, reproductive, LGBTQ+, and other civil rights—said in a statement Wednesday that her agency is ending the Biden administration's "failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees."
"Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda," Dhillon added.
"DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
Legal Defense Fund director of strategic initiatives Jin Hee Lee called the DOJ announcement "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
Lee said the DOJ investigations that led to the consent decrees "revealed a litany of systemic harms to community members, whom officers are sworn to protect—from wanton violence and sexual misconduct to unlawful stops, searches, and arrests, and racially discriminatory policing."
"By abandoning its obligation to pursue legal remedies that would stem this unlawful conduct, DOJ necessarily condones it," Lee added. "DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
NAACP president Derrick Johnson said on social media, "It's no surprise that Trump's Department of Coverups and Vengeance isn't seeking justice."
"It's been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn't passed in Congress, and police departments still haven't been held accountable," Johnson added, referring to Floyd's murder. "Five years."
Furthermore, speculation is growing over the prospect of Trump pardoning Chauvin. Addressing the possibility, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walzsaid earlier this week that "if Chauvin's federal conviction is pardoned, he will still have to serve the remainder of his 22-and-a-half-year state prison sentence for murder and manslaughter."
Opponents vowed to fight the Trump administration's civil rights pushback.
"Let me be clear: We will not give up," Crump said. "This movement will not be swayed or deterred by fickle politics. It is anchored in the irrefutable truth that Black lives matter, and that justice should not depend on who is in power."
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Experts Warn Trump Legal Claims for Mahmoud Khalil Arrest Portend Rise of Fascist Police State
"This targeting sends a chilling message to people across this country, on and off campuses, that anyone exercising their rights will be subject to repression, detention, and possible deportation," said one advocate.
Mar 12, 2025
As a federal judge on Wednesday extended an order temporarily banning the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil and new details emerged about the Trump administration's arguments for trying to expel him, legal experts and other commentators continued to express alarm over the targeting of the green-card holder involved with pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last year.
In a Wednesday statement, Legal Defense Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson cited President Donald Trump's recent Truth Social post that described Khalil as "a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student" and pledged that "this is the first arrest of many to come."
Nelson warned that "the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, and President Trump's promise that there will be more arrests to come, is a chilling presentiment that raises serious concerns about this administration's misuse of immigration enforcement personnel to curtail and punish constitutionally protected First Amendment activity. The Trump administration's tactics aim to stoke fear and signal that dissent will result in harmful immigration consequences and other forms of oppression that may include surveillance, violence, detainment, and even potential deportation."
"The law is clear," she stressed. "The First Amendment guarantees demonstrators the right to peacefully assemble and dissent without government retaliation. We demand due process and human and civil rights protections for Mr. Khalil and all lawful protesters. His treatment should alarm everyone who believes in the primacy of the U.S. Constitution and, especially, First Amendment freedom and equal protection under law."
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, finished his studies at Columbia in December. He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New York City on Saturday while returning home with his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen who said that "ICE officers hung up the phone on our lawyer." He is being held at an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that "a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio is so far the Trump administration's sole justification for trying to deport" him. The newpaper obtained a notice informing Khalil that he faces deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act because Rubio "has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."
Rubio on Wednesday suggested to reporters that Khalil supports Hamas, which has goverened the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades and is designated as a terrorist group by the United States. The secretary said that "this is not about free speech. This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with... No one has a right to a green card."
Khalil's lawyers said in a Monday filing that as a Palestinian, he "has felt compelled to be an outspoken advocate for the human rights of Palestinians, including on the campus of Columbia University," and "he is committed to calling on the rest of the world to protect the rights of Palestinians under international law and to stop enabling violence against Palestinians."
Last year's protests at Columbia and other campuses came as Israeli forces responded to a Hamas-led attack on Israel by waging a devstating U.S.-backed military assault on Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in widespread allegations of genocide.
The administration's attempt to deport Khalil and Trump's signal that other pro-Palestinian advocates will face similar attacks have provoked intense outrage. Khalil's legal team includes lawyers with the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which launched proceedings challenging his detention and seeking his return to New York.
"This is clearly an attempt to deport Mahmoud by exploiting a vague and overly broad provision of U.S. immigration law," CCR's Brad Parker told the Post. "This provision, if not reined in, will be exploited to pursue the deportation of anyone who disagrees with the administration's foreign policy agenda. This is not about security, this is about absolute executive power and repression."
Paul O'Brien, executive director at Amnesty International USA, also weighed in with Wednesday statement, calling Khalil's arrest "another attack on human rights by the Trump administration" and emphasizing that "each and every one of us—regardless of immigration status—has the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and due process."
"Targeting and threatening peaceful protesters and their immigration status for the content of their protest, such as advocating for the human rights of Palestinians, is a violation of human rights," he said. "This targeting sends a chilling message to people across this country, on and off campuses, that anyone exercising their rights will be subject to repression, detention, and possible deportation. And for the immigrant communities already living in fear throughout the U.S., they are now only further pushed into the shadows with fear that they could be deported for speaking out."
In addition to demanding Khalil's immediate release, O'Brien called on universities to "take steps to protect their immigrant students from ICE enforcement and ensure that the human rights of all of their students and faculty to protest in support of Palestinian rights and other issues is respected and protected."
As Common Dreams reported earlier Wednesday, Khalil's wife said in a detailed account of their recent experiences that her husband had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, seeking legal support, and had never heard back.
Jeffrey C. Isaac, a political science professor at Indiana University Bloomington, argued in a Wednesday opinion piece for Common Dreams that "this is not about Hamas or Palestine or Israel or antisemitism. It is about the crackdown on dissent. Period. Foreign 'agitators,' American 'agitators,' it makes no difference."
"The arrest of Khalil Mahmoud is an offense to every citizen of the United States, and it sets a precedent that endangers us all," Isaac added. "Trump is turning the United States into a police state."
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Third Judge Blocks Trump's 'Wildly Unconstitutional' Attack on Birthright Citizenship
"While this is just the first of many similar challenges we will face over the coming years, it is an important one because it again reaffirms the fundamental civil rights of American citizens," said one advocate.
Feb 10, 2025
Democracy defenders and migrant rights groups celebrated on Monday after a New Hampshire-based federal judge temporarily blocked Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship for children of people who are not in the country legally, the third to do so in under three weeks.
"Today's ruling is the latest rebuke of President Trump's wildly unconstitutional bid to end birthright citizenship," said Cody Wofsy, who is deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project and argued the case. "This attempt to deny babies their citizenship is as illegal as it is inhumane, and we will keep fighting until we stop this order for good."
Opponents of Trump's executive order argue that it clearly conflicts with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and over a century of legal precedent. The new preliminary injunction from District Judge Joseph Laplante followed similar decisions by Judge John Coughenour in Washington state and Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland.
"Birthright citizenship is a pillar of our democracy, and no president can simply erase it from our Constitution."
According to The Associated Press, "At least nine lawsuits have been filed to challenge the birthright citizenship order."
Laplante, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims and to suffer irreparable harm if he didn't block Trump's order. The judge also concluded that potential harm to plaintiffs absent any action outweighed possible damage to defendants, and that issuing the injunction was in the public interest.
This challenge against Trump's order was launched by the ACLU and the group's Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire arms as well as the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), State Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund on behalf of New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Make the Road New York.
"Today's injunction reaffirms what we already know: that birthright citizenship is a pillar of our democracy, and no president can simply erase it from our Constitution," said Jose Lopez, co-executive director of the grassroots group Make the Road New York.
"Our members come from all over the world with courage and resilience to make better lives for their families," Lopez continued. "We are grateful that this injunction means that their children will be treated equally to anyone else born in this country. It is what we all deserve, and we will keep fighting to make sure it is a reality."
ALC executive director Aarti Kohli similarly welcomed that "Trump's unconstitutional executive order is blocked for now, affirming the rights of thousands of Asian immigrants—working parents, asylum-seekers, students—who came here to find opportunity and safety."
Kohli also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the majority ruled that under the 14th Amendment, a young man born in California to Chinese citizen parents was an American.
"Instead of improving living conditions for all, this administration is creating chaos and fear to further a divisive agenda," she said. "Just as Wong Kim Ark and his community came together over a century ago, we will continue to fight for the freedom to create a better life for our loved ones."
Trump's order to end birthright citizenship is just part of his sweeping assault on migrants. Since returning to office last month, he's also effectively shut down the asylum process at the southern border, reinstated the "Remain in Mexico" policy, and pursued a mass deportation plan that involves locking up migrants in federal prisons and at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of LULAC, tied the injunction out of New Hampshire to the broader fight against Trump.
"Today's ruling further confirms that American citizens are indeed American citizens and that no one, not even a president, can take that away," said Proaño. "While this is just the first of many similar challenges we will face over the coming years, it is an important one because it again reaffirms the fundamental civil rights of American citizens and their immigrant family members."
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'Historic': NC Gov. Cooper Commutes 15 Death Sentences
Calling Cooper "courageous," executive director of the state's ACLU noted that with this decision, the Democrat "has commuted more death sentences than any governor in North Carolina's history."
Jan 01, 2025
Death penalty abolitionists are praising former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for one of his final actions in office: The Democrat on Tuesday commuted the sentences of 15 men on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Term-limited Cooper—who passed the torch to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday after eight years in office—announced the decision following a campaign by racial justice advocates and outgoing President Joe Biden's decision last week to commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to counter an expected killing spree under President-elect Donald Trump.
Although no executions have occurred in North Carolina in nearly two decades due to ongoing litigation, Cooper received clemency petitions from 89 of the 136 people on death row in the state, according to his office. After reviewing each case, the governor—who previously served as the state's attorney general for 16 years—granted 15.
"These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a governor can make, and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose," Cooper said in a statement. "After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring they will spend the rest of their lives in prison."
Big news in North Carolina: Governor Cooper, on his final day in office, commuted the sentences of 15 people on death row. (That's roughly 10% of the state's row.) www.npr.org/2024/12/31/g... We had reported last year on the urgent campaign to get Cooper to commute on his way out:
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— Taniel ( @taniel.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 7:35 PM
Welcoming the announcement, Chantal Stevens, executive director of ACLU of North Carolina, said that "with this action, Gov. Cooper has commuted more death sentences than any governor in North Carolina's history and joins the ranks of a group of courageous leaders who used their executive authority to address the failed death penalty."
"We have long known that the death penalty in North Carolina is racially biased, unjust, and immoral, and the governor's actions today pave the way for our state to move towards a new era of justice," Stevens continued. "This historic decision, following President Biden's decision to commute the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, reflects growing recognition that the death penalty belongs in our past, not our future."
"With 121 people still on death row in our state, we know there is much more work to be done to realize that vision, and the ACLU of North Carolina will continue to advocate for the end of the death penalty once and for all," she added.
Thank you Gov. Roy Cooper for sparing 15 lives from the death penalty. The carceral system should not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to put people to death – it's the cruelest and only irreversible punishment. #ncpol www.cbs17.com/news/north-c...
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— Prison Policy Initiative ( @prisonpolicy.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 4:32 PM
Stevens' group as well as the national ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL), the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and Durham attorney Jay H. Ferguson have represented Hasson Bacote, who brought the lead case challenging the death penalty under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act (RJA).
Bacote, a 38-year-old Black man convicted of first-degree murder in Johnston County in 2009, was among those who had their sentences commuted on Wednesday. According to Cooper's office, the other 14 men are:
- Iziah Barden, 67, convicted in Sampson County in 1999;
- Nathan Bowie, 53, convicted in Catawba County in 1993;
- Rayford Burke, 66, convicted in Iredell County in 1993;
- Elrico Fowler, 49, convicted in Mecklenburg County in 1997;
- Cerron Hooks, 46, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000;
- Guy LeGrande, 65, convicted in Stanly County in 1996;
- James Little, 38, convicted in Forsyth County in 2008;
- Robbie Locklear, 52, convicted in Robeson County in 1996;
- Lawrence Peterson, 55, convicted in Richmond County in 1996;
- William Robinson, 41, convicted in Stanly County in 2011;
- Christopher Roseboro, 60, convicted in Gaston County in 1997;
- Darrell Strickland, 66, convicted in Union County in 1995;
- Timothy White, 47, convicted in Forsyth County in 2000; and
- Vincent Wooten, 52, convicted in Pitt County in 1994.
"We are thrilled for Mr. Bacote and the other... people on death row who had their sentences commuted by Gov. Cooper today," said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. "This decision is a historic step towards ending the death penalty in North Carolina, but the fight for justice does not end here. We remain hopeful that the court will issue a ruling under the state's Racial Justice Act in Mr. Bacote's case that we can leverage for relief for the many others that still remain on death row."
The North Carolina General Assembly passed the RJA, which barred seeking or imposing the death penalty based on race, in 2009. Although state legislators then repealed the law in 2013, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that those who had already filed claims under it should still receive hearings.
Bacote's evidentiary hearing began last February, and the court heard closing arguments in August. LDF senior counsel Ashley Burrell noted Tuesday that "the RJA hearing demonstrated that racial bias infiltrates all death penalty cases in North Carolina, not just Mr. Bacote's and those in Johnston County."
Shelagh Kenney, deputy director of the Durham-based CDPL, similarly said that "Mr. Bacote brought forth unequivocal evidence, unlike any that’s ever been presented in a North Carolina courtroom, that the death penalty is racist."
"Through years of investigation and the examination of thousands of pages of documents, his case revealed a deep entanglement between the death penalty and North Carolina's history of segregation and racial terror," Kenney added. "We are happy Mr. Bacote got the relief he deserves, and we hope Gov. Cooper's action will be a step toward ending North Carolina's racist and error-prone death penalty for good."
NC Newsline reported that "the commutations came as inmates in North Carolina face a ticking clock on the death penalty, which has been on hold for nearly 20 years amid challenges to the punishment's legality. Should the courts in North Carolina rule against those challenges, executions could resume with haste, as dozens of the state's death row inmates have exhausted all other avenues for appeal."
Separately on Tuesday, Cooper announced commutations for 54-year-old Brian Fuller, who has served 27 years after being convicted of second-degree murder in Rockingham County, and 63-year-old Joseph Bromfield, 63, who has served 34 years after being convicted of first-degree murder in Cumberland County. They will both become parole eligible immediately.
Cooper also pardoned 43-year-old Brandon Wallace, who was convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and marijuana in Lee County in 2007, and 53-year-old John "Jack" Campbell, who was convicted of selling cocaine in Wake County in 1984
The decisions capped off Cooper's two terms as governor, during which he often had to contend with Republicans' veto-proof legislative majorities. Due to that experience, the Democrat frequently faces speculation that he may pursue federal office.
"If you're going to run for public office again, you must have your heart and soul in it, you must have the fire in the belly," Cooper
told The Associated Press in December, explaining that he plans to spend the next few months considering his future. "I'm going to think about how I can best contribute to the things that I care about."
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Senate Dems Reintroduce Bill to 'Restore Critical Safeguards' of Voting Rights Act
One advocate said the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is "critically important for Congress to pass at a moment in our history when the freedom to vote is under attack in our nation."
Feb 29, 2024
Civil and voting rights advocates on Thursday cheered the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), S.B. 4—a companion to H.R. 14, introduced last September—is named in honor of John Lewis, a late civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman. Republicans filibustered the previous iteration of the bill.
"In our nation, there's no freedom more fundamental than the right to vote," said Durbin. "But over the past several years, there has been a sustained effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed to every American under the Voting Rights Act. That's why we've joined together today to reintroduce a bill that would not only restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act, but strengthen it."
We just re-introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. I’m joined by @SenSchumer, @SenatorWarnock, and civil rights group leaders now.
Our message it’s clear: we must ensure that democracy works for all of us. https://t.co/SH7ujaLfjw
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) February 29, 2024
Warnock said: "I was Congressman Lewis' pastor, but he was my mentor and hero because he believed voting is a sacred undertaking that's about more than a person's voice, it's about their humanity. That's why this legislation is more important than ever, because the fight to protect voting rights and voting access for every eligible American remains unfinished and even worse, so much of the progress Congressman Lewis fought for is being rolled back."
NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Janai Nelson called the bill "a vital piece of legislation that will safeguard the fundamental right to vote by strengthening and restoring the Voting Rights Act, one of the most impactful civil rights laws in our nation's history."
"It is fitting that this critical legislation is put forward as we approach the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when Black Americans—including civil rights hero John Lewis—endured brutal state-sponsored violence while marching for basic rights, which led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act."
"The fight to protect voting rights and voting access for every eligible American remains unfinished and even worse, so much of the progress Congressman Lewis fought for is being rolled back."
The landmark VRA was meant to ensure that state and local governments could not "deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."
However, the VRA has been eroded in recent decades by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, including with restrictions on voter registration, reduction in early voting options, and 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.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the VRA in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated a key section of the law that required jurisdictions with a history of racist disenfranchisement to obtain federal approval prior to altering voting rules. In 2021, the nation's high court voted 5-4 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee to uphold Arizona's voting restrictions—even as Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that they disproportionately affect minorities.
"Since Shelby and more recently Brnovich v. DNC made it even harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws, states have continued to limit access to the ballot and use the redistricting process to dilute Black voters' voices," Nelson asserted. "States that were formerly protected—including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas—are all places where LDF has been forced to bring recent litigation to challenge unlawful racial discrimination in voting."
Common Cause president Virginia Kase Solomón asserted that the protections proposed in the new bill "are critically important for Congress to pass at a moment in our history when the freedom to vote is under attack in our nation."
"A bedrock of our democracy, the freedom to vote has been under sustained assault since the 2020 election with dozens of anti-voter laws passed in states all across the country to make it harder for Americans—particularly in Black and brown communities—to have a say in choosing their elected leaders," she added.
Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said in a statement that "in the Shelby decision, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that there is still discrimination in our nation's electoral process—and this bill would provide strong and robust safeguards to combat it."
"We urge Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and help make our democracy more responsive to all of our nation's voices," he added.
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Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Impose Racially Rigged Congressional Map
As the Alabama ACLU noted, the state must now create a second district "where Black voters have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice by the 2024 elections."
Sep 26, 2023
In a ruling hailed by civil rights defenders as a "win for Black voters," the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday
declined to intervene in a case in which Alabama Republicans are openly defying a federal court's order to redraw the state's racially gerrymandered congressional map.
Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the case, applauded Tuesday's ruling—in which no justices publicly dissented—as a "victory for all Alabamians" and "definitely a really positive step."
The state's Republican policymakers "basically said if you were Black in Alabama, your vote would count for less," Milligan told The Associated Press. "It was our duty and honor to challenge that."
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) described the decision as "another big win for Alabama's Black voters."
Sherrilyn Ifill, the former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), called the ruling "huge."
"I am darned near tearful with pride," she wrote on social media. "It takes so much to litigate these cases—often before hostile courts, with opposition that is unprincipled, and with naysayers all around."
The Brennan Center for Justice's Michael Li said in a statement that "after a string of remarkable victories, Black voters in Alabama are closer than ever to winning relief from discriminatory maps."
A 2022 order by a federal district court ruled that a new congressional map approved by Alabama's GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey after the 2020 census diluted Black voting power because it contained just one majority African-American district. The court—which found that the maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment—ordered the state to create a new plan with two Black "opportunity districts."
Alabama appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June ruled 5-4 in Allen v. Milligan—with right-wing Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh surprising many observers by joining their three liberal colleagues in the majority—to affirm the lower court's decision.
In response to Allen v. Milligan, Ivey convened a special legislative session to make a new map, which she approved in July, declaring that state lawmakers know "our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups."
Despite court orders, Alabama Republicans' new congressional map—the Livingston Congressional Plan 3—lacked a second majority Black district. The map's sponsor, state Sen. Steve Livingston (R-8), said U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told him that he was "interested in keeping my majority."
A federal three-judge panel consisting of two appointees of former President Donald Trump and one appointee of former President Ronald Reagan subsequently blocked the new map, writing that "we are deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires."
Republican Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen then asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case again. In a brief, Allen lamented that Alabama "has been maligned as engaging in 'open rebellion'" for defying multiple federal court orders.
The justices' denial on Tuesday allows an effort to replace the rigged map to continue.
On Monday, a special master appointed by the district court submitted three proposals for a new congressional map in Alabama. One of them will be chosen as the state's map for the 2024 elections. A three-judge panel has tentatively scheduled an October 3 hearing to consider the maps.
LDF president and director-counsel Janai Nelson said on social media that "all maps proposed by the special master would allow Black Alabamians the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice in two congressional districts in the state."
Tuesday's ruling follows the Supreme Court's June decision to allow the redrawing of Louisiana's racially gerrymandered congressional map—a move that will add a second majority-Black district in the Southern state where 1 in 3 residents are African-American.
The ruling also comes amid a battle over Florida's congressional map, drawn by the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—a 2024 presidential candidate—and approved last year by the state's GOP-controlled Legislature. Earlier this month, a state judge ruled that the redistricting plan is an unconstitutional dilution of Black voters' ability to vote for the legislator of their choice and ordered the map redrawn.
The case will now head to the Florida Supreme Court, where a majority of justices are DeSantis appointees.
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