Tag: ACLU

WIN FOR THE BORDER: 9th Circuit Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Trump on Asylum Seekers

by Breck Worsham, posted in law, news, politics

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of President Donald Trump’s order that asylum seekers must wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings while the policy is challenged in court.

The ruling was declared a victory by the Trump administration in its ongoing battle to secure the United States’ southern border.

The surprise move by the appeal’s court reversed a decision by a San Francisco judge who previously ruled that asylum seekers could not be returned to Mexico as the challenged is adjudicated. The court has a prominent history of ruling against the president on such matters.

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that returning asylum seekers to Mexico while the case is adjudicated put them at unnecessary risk. The ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies had each sued the Trump administration over the policy, calling the president’s order “unconstitutional”.

“Asylum seekers are being put at serious risk of harm every day that the forced return policy continues,” Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said of the policy.

However, in its ruling, the three-judge appeals court panel cited the Mexican government’s stance rejecting the argument that asylum seekers were at risk. The “likelihood of harm is reduced somewhat by the Mexican government’s commitment to honor its international law obligations and to grant humanitarian status and work permits to individuals returned under the (Migrant Protection Protocols)” the court said.

The administration has said it plans to rapidly expand the policy across the border as a result of the court’s ruling.

The U.S. has returned 3,267 Central American asylum seekers to date, Mexico’s immigration agency said Monday.

Calls for comment to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies were not immediately returned.

Republican National Convention: Day Four

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‘TOO DEVISIVE’: ACLU complains of Trump’s use of the word ‘America’ during State of the Union address

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

NEW YORK, NY — The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday put out a statement in which it complained about President Donald Trump’s use of the word “America” in his State of the Union speech.

Calling the word, “divisive”, Faiz Shakir, the ACLU’s national political director, said the president’s repeated use of our nation’s name was “harmful” to “vulnerable communities”.

“Tonight, President Trump said the word ‘America’ more than 80 times in his speech,” the ACLU said in a statement posted to its website (https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-trumps-america-exclusionary). “Yet, after a divisive first year, we hear and feel how exclusionary that ‘America’ is, with policies that have harmed so many vulnerable American communities. The ACLU stands ready to protect these communities, both in the courts and at the polls.”

“In particular, the immigration plan put forth by Trump would hold Dreamers hostage to his demands for a harmful border wall and an even larger mass deportation force,” the statement continued. “We are at this crossroads because of the President’s deeply destructive ideas fomented by his nativist allies and divisive rhetoric. We will continue to stand up for these young immigrants and ensure they continue to contribute to our country. We cannot let America’s Dreamers be deported.”

The organization, which has been a leader in efforts to prevent the deportation of illegal immigrants, has stepped up their fight against law enforcement and federal immigration agencies during the course of the past year.

Some mainstream news agencies have also come under fire since Trump’s Tuesday night address for condemning traditional American values referenced by the president.

“Church … family … police … military … the national anthem … Trump trying to call on all the tropes of 1950s-era nationalism. The goal of this speech appears to be to force the normalization of Trump on the terms of the bygone era his supporters are nostalgic for,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid tweeted in response to the president’s speech (https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/958528313563254784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infowars.com%2Faclu-attacks-trump-sotu-speech-used-word-america-over-80-times%2F).

Reid’s comments quickly resulted in a wave of backlash from Conservatives who called her comments “sick” and “disrespectful”.

“Do you seriously consider “Church … family … police … military … the national anthem …” to be “terms of a bygone era”?” Forbes columnist Joseph Steinberg tweeted in response to Reid’s comment.

“Since when are things like Church & family “bygone” era? You liberals are some sick ungodly anti-family (husband & wife) individuals,” another Twitter user, Patricia Dickson, tweeted to Reid in response.

“So you hate Church, family, policy and military? How much more disrespectful can you be?” yet another Twitter user, Ben Jammin, replied to Reid.

Despite the ACLU’s claims that the president’s words during his State of the Union address were divisive, Trump administration officials have called on media outlets to focus on the president’s actual words during his first ever state address.

“Tonight, I am extending an open hard to work with members of both parties — Democrats and Republicans — to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion and creed,” Trump said.

“My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream,” Trump added. “Because Americans are dreamers too.”

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TRUMP TRUMPED AGAIN: 4TH CIRCUIT SHOOTS DOWN PRESIDENT’S APPEAL ON TRAVEL BAN

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s embattled travel ban has received yet another legal blow.

By a 10-3 margin, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday refused to reinstate the president’s executive order which would have issued a temporary block on immigrants coming to America from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Sudan.

The executive order was first issued on Jan. 27, a week into Trump’s presidency. Less than two weeks later, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, ruled the ban unconstitutional and issued it’s own order to block it.

The president quickly appealed and revised the original order,
omitting Iraq, which had been listed on the original order, removed a complete ban on Syrian refugees and deleted direct references to religion, but the Fourth Circuit ultimately found the amended order unconstitutional as well (https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/irap_-_opinion.pdf).

“We remain unconvinced [the ban] has more to do with national security than it does with effectuating the President’s promised Muslim ban,” the court stated in it’s ruling.

Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote the president’s order, “speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”

“Congress granted the president broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute. It cannot go unchecked when, as here, the president wields it through an executive edict that stands to cause irreparable harm to individuals across this nation,” the order continued.

However, Judge Paul Niemeyer, one of the three judges voting to overturn the Ninth Circuit court’s ruling, sharply dissented from the decision, warning that failure to allow Trump’s executive order to stand may put Americans in unnecessary danger.

Judge Dennis Shedd, another of the judges who voted to allow the president’s executive order to stand, concurred with Neimeyer’s warning.

“Regrettably, at the end of the day, the real losers in this case are the millions of individual Americans whose security is threatened on a daily basis by those who seek to do us harm,” Shedd wrote in his dissent.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center, who brought the 4th Circuit case against the travel ban, have claimed victory.

“President Trump’s Muslim ban violates the Constitution, as this decision strongly reaffirms,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, of the court’s ruling. “The Constitution’s prohibition on actions disfavoring or condemning any religion is a fundamental protection for all of us, and we can all be glad that the court today rejected the government’s request to set that principle aside.”

When reached for comment, a White House spokesperson said he expects the president to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. “One way or another, we’ll get it done,” he said. “We made a promise to the American people and we intend to keep it.”

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‘GOD BLESS AMERICA’: TRUMP STRIKES BACK AGAINST WAR ON FAITH; SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO PROTECT RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a move to restore religious freedoms in the U.S., president Donald Trump signed on Thursday an executive order to protect churches from sanctions by the IRS.

In his introduction of the president during a National Day of Prayer event inside the Rose Garden, Vice President Mike Pence said the National Day of Prayer is a time to reaffirm “the vital role people of faith play in American society” and praised Trump for marking the importance of the day.

“Our President is a believer. He loves his family and he loves his country with an unshakeable faith in God,” said Pence.

After thanking the Vice-president, Trump took to the podium and declared that the war on Christianity by the government is over.

“We’re a nation of believers. Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country, the spirit of our founding and the soul of our nation,” Trump said as religious leaders and members of his staff looked on. “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore.”

After a word of prayer with attending clergy, the president signed the executive action which effectively reverses the ban on political speech from the pulpit that was introduced in 1954 by then-Democratic Sen. Lyndon Johnson. Johnson’s bill, which was approved by Congress, gave the IRS the authority to punish tax-exempt religious organizations, including churches, for making political endorsements or participating in political campaigns.

“We are giving our churches their voices back,” Trump said.

“You are great, great people,” the president continues, pointing to the religious leaders in attendance. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors.”

“God bless you, and God bless America,” he concluded.

The order, “to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty”, was met with welcome praise by religious leaders from around the country.

“The first freedom in the Bill of Rights is religious freedom. America was born on the foundation of religious freedom and it is one of our most cherished liberties. There could be no better day to sign an executive order on religious freedom than the National Day of Prayer,” Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, said of the executive action.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, also praised the order.

“The open season on Christians and other people of faith is coming to a close in America and we look forward to assisting the Trump administration in fully restoring America’s First Freedom,” Perkins said in a released statement,

However, critics of the president were quick to categorize the order as an attack on the LGBT community.

In a statement, (https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-reports-impending-religious-freedom-executive-order) Louise Melling, ACLU’s deputy legal director said of the order: “The ACLU fights every day to defend religious freedom, but religious freedom does not mean the right to discriminate against or harm others. If President Trump signs an executive order that attempts to provide a license to discriminate against women or LGBT people, we will see him in court.”

When reached for statement on the ACLU’s response, a White House spokesperson said the president had, “no comment” on the organization’s threat.

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