Free Republic

For Democrats, social justice is big business. Witness Southwest Key Programs: As part of the migrant money machine, it pulled in around a brain-busting $3 billion in taxpayer funds between fiscal 2021 and 2024. The group is the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant kids — and clearly rotten to the core. The Biden Justice Department sued it in July, over accusations of “severe” and “pervasive” rape and abuse of the kids in the group’s care between 2015 and 2023 — and a congressional probe found evidence suggesting SKP even turned kids over to traffickers. But that didn’t stop the...

The Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply, two senior officials tell Axios. Why it matters: The administration's decision to defy a federal judge's order is exceedingly rare and highly controversial. "Court order defied. First of many as I've been warning and start of true constitutional crisis," national security attorney Mark S. Zaid, a Trump critic, wrote on X, adding that Trump could ultimately get impeached. The White House welcomes that fight. "This is headed...

Judge Boasberg ordered the Trump Administration to turn around planes that were deporting dangerous Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang members. “Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished,” Boasberg said, according to Politico. “Make sure it’s complied with immediately.” According to the ACLU, there are two flights en route to Central America. One flight bound for El Salvador may have already taken off.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from removing some immigrants from the United States using the Alien Enemies Act. The ruling stems from a lawsuit, J.G.G. v. Trump, filed earlier today by the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward, and the ACLU of the District of Columbia challenging the president’s expected unlawful and unprecedented invocation of the act.

A federal district judge in Indiana has once again ordered the state Department of Correction (IDOC) to arrange a sex reassignment surgery for a transgender inmate convicted of reckless homicide of a baby, marking the latest development in the ongoing legal saga challenging an Indiana law banning the procedure. The case, now in its second year, involves inmate Autumn Cordellioné's request for sex reassignment surgery. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) first filed the lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections in 2023 on behalf of Cordellioné, challenging an Indiana law that prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer...

Several Republican senators have taken issue with the American Bar Association (ABA) and are calling for President Donald Trump to take drastic action against the group. In a letter to ABA President William Bay, lawmakers said the group, which plays a key role in judicial nominations, had become "biased and ideologically captured." Now, those lawmakers want President Trump to "remove the ABA from the judicial nomination process entirely."Sen. Eric Schmitt, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Sen. Josh Hawley, Sen. Bernie Moreno and Sen. Mike Lee are also calling on their fellow senators to "disregard the ABA’s recommendations."In the explosive...

Freedom of expression is guaranteed in Article 5 of the Basic Law, the German constitution, which also makes clear that this freedom has limits in order to, for example, to protect young people, privacy or personal honor. The protection of personal honor plays a particularly important role in the German legal system, said lawyer Ralf Poscher, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg. “This originates from the time in history when notions of honor were even more important. They were then embraced by the middle classes too, and were incorporated into...

A group of Venezuelan nationals are suing the Trump administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, claiming the decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States was illegally motivated by race. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, is being brought by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network on behalf of the Venezuelan TPS designees. . . “The Secretary’s decisions also were motivated at...

Since winning his election and taking office for his second term, President Donald J. Trump wasted no time sweeping up the messes left by the dark ages of the Biden presidency, including mass deporting the multitude of law-breaking people who invaded our sovereign borders. Rather than speaking up for the rights of American citizens violently ripped from their mothers’ wombs every day, the abortion-hungry Left has leapt to defend the cause of illegal aliens. In doing so, they deem illegal aliens in the womb worthy of greater legal protections than American children in the womb. Main Idea: The American Civil...

Denver Public Schools has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over a policy allowing ICE immigration agents to enter schools. The federal lawsuit claims that the policy has caused attendance to plummet due to the amount of illegal aliens in the district. “DPS is hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds,” the lawsuit states, according to a report from ABC News. “Parents across Denver enroll their...

t seems a concerted effort is under way to conceal the identity of the Harvard law student who hurled anti-Semitic epithets at Israel's former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni during her recent address at the university. During the question and answer session at her speaking engagement, someone identified merely as "the president of a student organization," invoked an age-old anti-Semitic slur, asking Livni, "how is it that you are so smelly?” He then repeated the question: "A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering." CanaryMission.org notes that great lengths are being taken...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The ACLU says they've filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan after the school banned several people from its Ann Arbor campus due to their involvement in Pro-Palestinian protests. This lawsuit comes just days after the University suspended "Students Allied for Freedom and Equality" for the next two years, a student organization that's been central in many of the pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The plaintiffs include five people who the lawsuit claims have been banned from campus following their participation in pro-Palestinian protests. They claim the trespass bans are a violation of free speech. One...

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Chase Strangio appeared to employ a new term for an adult human female Tuesday. The trans rights activist — who is also a transgender man — appeared on the left-wing digital news show “Democracy Now!” to slam President Donald Trump’s executive order on sex and gender. Strangio complained to show host Amy Goodman that Trump “is targeting trans people by focusing on retrenching this notion of a fixed gender binary at the time of conception.” While making the case, Strangio referred to biological women as “non-transgender women.” […] After refusing to call biological women...

That didn’t take long, but we knew it wouldn’t. Lefty organizations have been fundraising off their promises to fight Trump for a decade now. And since most of them aren’t going to be organizing protests and there are no more presidential elections coming up featuring Trump, that mostly means suing the federal government. Don’t underestimate lawfare. A barrage of lawsuits helped slow the Trump agenda to a crawl in his first term so it was always going to be a rush out of the gate. And the ACLU got in first with a lawsuit challenging an end to birthright citizenship...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. The lawsuit was filed in New Hampshire on Monday evening, just hours after the executive order was signed. Under Trump’s order, a baby born in the United States will not have automatic citizenship unless one of the parents is a citizen or green card holder. .....Snip ..... The ACLU argues that the order violates the 14th Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act. “Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American...

The transfer is the largest yet during the Biden administration. ... In a major development, the Pentagon on Monday announced the transfer 11 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman, a move that now leaves only 15 detainees still at the detention facility. "The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility," said a DOD statement. In recent weeks, the Pentagon had transferred out four other detainees from Guantanamo including a detainee who was brought to...

This time around, the ACLU shows no signs of backing off, particularly since Trump has once again made big promises to overhaul the border and immigration protocols.ACLU leadership warned two days after the Nov. 5 election that the organization stood ready to take on Trump again.“As Trump returns to the White House, we’re ready to return to the courts and Congress to fight for our civil liberties,” the group said in a statement last month.“Starting on day one, we’re ready to fight for our civil liberties and civil rights in the courts, in Congress, and in our communities,” it continued....

A federal judge ruled on Monday that sections of an Arkansas law, which sought to impose criminal penalties on librarians and booksellers for distributing “harmful” material to children, were unconstitutional. The law, known as the Arkansas Act 372, was signed into law last year by Republican governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It was challenged by a coalition of organizations in the state, leading to a lengthy legal battle that concluded this week. Two sections of Act 372 subjected librarians and booksellers to jail time for distributing material that is deemed “harmful to children”. Proponents of the law, including Sanders, said the...

An incoming Democrat state representative in West Virginia has been arrested after he allegedly threatened to kill five of his soon-to-be Republican colleagues. Joseph de Soto, 61, was arrested by state police Thursday in Martinsburg after an investigation found that he made “several threatening/intimidating threats against government officials,” according to a statement from Lieutenant Leslie T. Goldie Jr. of the West Virginia State Police. Police did not provide additional details as to what the threats were or whom exactly they were directed towards. Local outlet WDVM reported that West Virginia Republican Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw was one of...

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that sought to overturn a ban on gender affirming care for minors in Tennessee. Of course you can't always tell how things are going to turn out by listening to the arguments but you can sometimes get a hint of what each justice is thinking. So here are some of the highlights (or lowlights depending how you look at it).U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar Argues the Ban is Sex DiscriminationFirst up and setting the tone for the opponents of the ban was Prelogar.She argues that the law is a...