Free Republic

The University of California must reconsider its policy barring students living in the country illegally from on-campus jobs because the practice is discriminatory, a state appeals court ruled this week. The court also said UC’s policy violates California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act because refusing to hire students who lack work authorization is discrimination based on immigration status.

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at an immigration detention center — built in the middle of the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — as attorneys argue whether it violates environmental laws. The facility can continue to operate and hold detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but workers will be barred from adding any new filling, paving or infrastructure for the next 14 days. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the ruling during a hearing and said she will issue a written order later Thursday. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee...

A federal judge out of San Francisco, California, is blocking President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from ending a temporary quasi-amnesty program for tens of thousands of migrants in the United States. As Breitbart News reported, in June and early July, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of migrants in the United States from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal. Though meant to be temporary, since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program as nearly every president has routinely extended it and designated new countries...

A federal judge on Monday expanded a preliminary injunction and blocked Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Provision barring funding for Planned Parenthood nationwide. Earlier this month Judge Talwani, an Obama appointee, issued a TRO and temporarily blocked the reconciliation bill’s provision barring funding for Planned Parenthood. Last Monday, the judge granted a preliminary injunction in part extending a block on barring funding for Planned Parenthood. Today, Judge Talwani expanded her injunction nationwide. The judge’s ruling comes after the US Supreme Court largely restricted lower courts from issuing nationwide injunctions. CNN reported: A federal judge in Boston has widened her block on...

A federal judge has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Illinois and Chicago over sanctuary policies that the government has said interfere with federal immigration enforcement. In a ruling released Friday, U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins said the government lacked standing to override local laws that limit cooperation and information-sharing between law enforcement. Jenkins said the government doesn’t have the legal authority “to commandeer states under the guise of intergovernmental immunity.” The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s birthright citizenship order in a third ruling since the Supreme Court restricted nationwide injunctions. US District Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama appointee, blocked President Trump’s executive order nationwide. Sorokin’s ruling comes after another district court and a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Trump’s birthright citizenship order. The US Supreme Court recently restricted lower courts from issuing nationwide injunctions. The AP reported:

Washington — A federal judge on Wednesday barred federal immigration authorities from immediately taking Kilmar Abrego Garcia into custody once he is released from criminal confinement in Tennessee and ordered the Trump administration to provide him 72 hours' notice if it plans to initiate proceedings to remove him to a country that is not his place of origin. The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis was issued as a federal judge in Tennessee, who is presiding over Abrego Garcia's criminal case, ruled that the Salvadoran national should be released from the custody of federal law enforcement under conditions that...

The Trump Administration has been doing its part, but the lower courts remain rabid in their attack on the rule of law.. Federal judge James Boasberg advised Chief Justice John Roberts and some two dozen other judges that his D.C. colleagues were “concern[ed] that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis,” according to a memorandum obtained exclusively by The Federalist. That Judge Boasberg and his fellow D.C. District Court judges would discuss how a named Defendant in numerous pending lawsuits might respond to an adverse ruling is shocking. Equally outrageous is those judges’ clear...

A federal judge in New York has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to strip immigration protections from Haitians fleeing instability in their country. The ruling Friday from U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan preserves, for now, the Biden administration’s 2024 extension of the protections, known as “temporary protected status,” for up to 500,000 Haitians living in the United States. Cogan’s 23-page decision is the latest legal development in the administration’s efforts to roll back TPS designations and other immigration programs that allow immigrants from countries facing humanitarian crises to live and work here legally. In a separate case, the Supreme Court...

Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stay in jail for now over concerns that he could be deported if he’s released to await his trial on human smuggling charges, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled Monday. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay his release because of what they described as “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over what would happen to the Salvadoran national. The lawyers wrote in a brief to the court that “we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue” by the Justice Department, adding that the “irony of this request is...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the entire federal district court of Maryland on Tuesday. The lawsuit challenges a standing order issued by the court to automatically block the deportation of any illegal migrant who files a petition for writ of habeas corpus. It names all 15 judges, as well as the court clerk, as defendants. “Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the lawsuit states. “And it does so in the...

BREAKING: A Federal Magistrate judge just DENIED a motion to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in custody for human trafficking charges, pending trial.

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to free former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from the immigration detention center where he has been held since early March while the Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Palestinian protests. Ruling from the bench in New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue to detain a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence. In reaching his decision, he said Khalil is likely...

Obama-appointed Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida holds Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in contempt of court over enforcing Florida's anti-illegal immigration laws, cooperating with the Trump admin Uthmeier had said that a prior order from the judge did not apply to law enforcement on halting immigration actions because they were not party to the case.

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge blocked New York City’s mayor from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at the city’s main jail, in part because of concerns the mayor invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case.New York Judge Mary Rosado’s decision Friday is a setback for Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the Rikers Island jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into...

SummaryFederal judge in Boston considers issuing injunctionTrump suspended ability of foreign nationals to study at HarvardHarvard accuses Trump of infringing its First Amendment rightsBOSTON, June 16 (Reuters) - A federal judge said on Monday that she would issue a brief extension of an order temporarily blocking President Donald Trump's plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the U.S. to study at Harvard University while she decides whether to issue a longer-term injunction.U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, at the end of a hearing in Boston in Harvard's legal challenge to the restrictions, extended to June 23 a temporary restraining order that...

A federal judge late Thursday ruled that the federalization of parts of California’s National Guard by President Donald Trump was “illegal,” and ordered Trump to return control of the Guard to state Gov. Gavin Newsom “forthwith.” But Judge Charles Breyer stayed his temporary restraining order from taking effect until 3 p.m. ET on Friday to allow the Trump administration to appeal his decision. The administration promptly did just that, asking the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to block Breyer’s ruling from taking effect. Trump, over the past week, had federalized 4,000 members of the California National Guard, and mobilized...

A federal judge in San Francisco expressed skepticism at a hearing Thursday that President Trump had the authority to federalize the National Guard, questioning whether he had followed the law before ordering an extraordinary deployment to Los Angeles over the weekend. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, presiding over the case, pushed back against the Justice Department’s central argument, that courts had no say in the matter. “We’re talking about the president is exercising his authority, and of course, the president is limited in his authority,” Breyer said. “That’s the difference between the president and King George.” “We live in response...

An ex-CIA analyst was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for leaking top secret documents about Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran last year. Asif William Rahman, 34, had pleaded guilty in January to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information after he was arrested for absconding with records from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency last October that indicated Israel was planning to launch airstrikes in response to a massive Iranian missile attack. Rahman, who had been a CIA employee since 2016 and had access to top secret documents, leaked the stolen information on social...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing anti-diversity and anti-transgender executive orders in grant funding requirements that LGBTQ+ organizations say are unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said Monday that the federal government cannot force recipients to halt programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or acknowledge the existence of transgender people in order to receive grant funding. The order will remain in effect while the legal case continues, although government lawyers will likely appeal. The funding provisions “reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and...