Free Republic

A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming UFC fight card on the White House South Lawn in a mixed martial arts show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the towering arch overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted...

Washington — A commission that advises the federal government on architecture and the arts voted Thursday to approve President Trump's overhaul of the White House East Wing, clearing a key hurdle before above-ground construction can begin on a new ballroom. Six members of the Commission of Fine Arts voted to give final approval of the project after discussing the plans at a virtual meeting. One member, the original architect of the ballroom, recused himself. All of the members were appointed by the president after he fired the previous members in October.

***U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled the government must pay to fly back or accept at a port of entry any of the men who are now in countries other than Venezuela. Upon arrival in the U.S., they will be detained as they fight accusations they are Tren de Aragua gang members. The judge previously ruled the government violated the due process rights of the 137 Venezuelan men, and they were entitled to a hearing. But Boasberg had left the door open for a legal process that didn’t entail their physical return. “Apparently not interested in participating in this process,...

JUST IN: Judge BOASBERG has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Venezuelan men illegally deported under the Alien Enemies Act and who are currently in countries other than Venezuela. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436/gov.uscourts.dcd.278436.247.0_4.pdf

The Trump administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials who opposed President Donald Trump’s extraordinary move to use state Guard troops without the governor’s approval to further his immigration enforcement efforts. But he also put the decision on hold until Monday. California argued that conditions in Los Angeles had changed since Trump first took command of the troops and deployed them in June. The administration initially...

A federal judge on Friday blocked the IRS from giving ICE the home addresses of taxpayers who might be undocumented immigrants — dealing a blow to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The ruling is a significant victory for immigrant-rights group and liberal activists who are trying to resist the mass deportations that President Donald Trump has made a top priority for the first year of his second term. The Trump administration can appeal the decision, and it has a decent track record this year of overturning lower-court losses. A separate federal judge in a related case previously declined to...

The first nine months of the President Trump’s second term have seen repeated instances of a Federal District Court judge temporarily enjoining some action of the administration, only to have the Supreme Court stay the injunction while the litigation proceeds. Examples of this pattern of events have occurred in cases involving such things as funding rescissions, staff lay-offs, and deportation procedures. A recurring feature of this pattern has been dissents from the three liberal Supreme Court justices — Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson — who would have left the temporary injunctions in place during the pendency of the litigation. Justice Jackson,...

A federal judge on Friday ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, was unconstitutional. On Sunday, US District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, temporarily extended an order blocking the administration from deploying troops to The Rose City, saying the government failed to justify the move. In the Sunday evening order, Immergut temporarily blocked “Defendant Secretary of Defense [Pete] Hegseth from implementing” memorandums that authorized the federalization and deployment of National Guard members from Oregon, Texas and California into Portland. The injunction remained in effect until Friday. Friday’s 106-page ruling makes the...

A federal judge in Chicago just made a decision that’s raising eyebrows — and not just among immigration officers.In a move that’s already stirring debate nationwide, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ruled that ICE agents — yes, federal officers — can be arrested if they take migrants into custody at Cook County courthouses without a proper warrant. Let that sink in for a second. (snip) So, who’s actually in charge here — federal law enforcement… or local judges?And if ICE agents can be arrested for doing their jobs, what kind of message does that send to those who aren’t even...

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa, and New York do not have to comply with recent executive orders requiring them to affirm biological sex and discontinue the promotion of radical gender ideology and promiscuity in order to receive federal funding Key Takeaways: * Despite multiple Trump executive orders specifying otherwise, a district judge has ruled that certain Planned Parenthood affiliates in three states do not have to rid their sex ed curricula of radical gender ideology. * The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has been shown in the past to have failed to...

Later this week the United Nations will hold a vote on a multibillion-dollar climate change tax targeted squarely at American industry. Without quick and decisive action by the White House, this U.N. tax on fossil fuels will become international law. This resolution before the International Maritime Organization will impose a carbon tax on cargo and cruise ships that carry $20 trillion of merchandise over international waters. Roughly 80% of the bulkage of world trade is transported by ship. The resolution is intended to advance the very “net zero” carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped European economies for years and that...

An 8-foot security fence surrounding the Broadview, Illinois Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility has been removed at the order of a U.S. District Court judge. Judge Lashonda Hunt ordered the removal of the security fence last Friday, claiming that the temporary fence was on municipal land without permission and allegedly violated local ordinances by blocking emergency vehicles. Hunt had ruled that the fence violated safety code because the gate was 16 feet wide, rather than the 20-foot requirement adopted by the village under the International Fire Code. The judge’s order stated: “DHS’s Beach Street gate creates a quasi-federal...

U.S. District Court Judge LaShonda Hunt, a Biden-appointed federal judge in Illinois, has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to dismantle a security fence protecting the federal immigration processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, a facility that has been the site of violent protests and anti-ICE riots since the launch of President Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz earlier this fall.

A U.S. District Court on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the Trump administration from deploying 200 National Guardsmen to Portland, Oregon, amid violent anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests. The lawsuit, brought by the State of Oregon and City of Portland, argued the deployment was unlawful, exceeding the president’s statutory and constitutional authority. Judge Karin Immergut, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, granted the TRO blocking the federal action.

A federal judge in Oregon has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard into Portland after the president announced he would send in troops to protect what he calls a “war-ravaged” city. The ruling by the Trump-nominated judge marks the latest setback to White House efforts to crack down on Democratic-led cities it claims are stricken by crime and disorder, often in part by citing the need to protect ICE facilities from riotous protesters. The temporary restraining order expires in 14 days on October 18, US District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump nominee,...

An Oregon federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from sending the National Guard into Portland, as the city contends with hundreds of protestors at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. It's a major blow to Trump, who called Portland a 'war-ravaged' city under siege by Antifa terrorists, when he announced last week that federal agents would be deployed there. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, made the ruling after the city and the state sued the federal government. The temporary restraining order expires in 14 days on October 18, Immergut wrote in her order. The Department of...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed five bills Saturday designed to push back against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, a package of legislation he described as a defense of the state’s values of diversity and inclusion. “There’s a word you’ve never heard uttered from the President of the United States’ lips, certainly not Stephen Miller,” Newsom said during the signing ceremony in downtown Los Angeles. “That’s pluralism. We practice pluralism. It’s a deep point of pride. Those values are under assault.” Several of the new laws focus on public schools. One requires staff to notify students and parents when Immigration...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States. It also keeps protections for about 500,000 Haitians. Chen scolded Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for revoking protections...

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to allow U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to refuse to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities. A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold an injunction issued by a trial judge barring the U.S. Department of State from enforcing a policy it adopted at Trump's direction.

US District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, blocked President Trump from cutting billions of dollars in USAID and foreign aid that Congress authorized. Trump will immediately appeal Judge Ali’s ruling. “President Trump has the executive authority to ensure that all foreign aid is accountable to taxpayers and aligns with the America First priorities people voted for,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to Reuters. Reuters reported: