US Politics

Nancy Pelosi seemed to offer a less-than-ringing endorsement when asked if Kamala Harris was the best running mate for Joe Biden next year, saying: “He thinks so, and that’s what matters.”But the former US House speaker also had praise for the vice-president, telling CNN: “And, by the way, she’s very politically astute. I don’t think people give her enough credit. She’s … consistent with the president’s values and the rest.”As Biden knows after eight years under Barack Obama, the vice-presidency has never been easy to fill. Harris may or may not agree with John Nance Garner’s famous observation, that the job he did for Franklin D Roosevelt wasn’t worth “a pitcher of warm piss”, but she has experienced familiar trials.Speculation over her performance and possible replacement has been constant. In a deeply sourced new book about the Biden White House, the author Franklin Foer describes Harris’s struggles to define her role.Nor does Harris enjoy favourable polling. Her approval rating – like Biden’s – has long been stuck at around 40%.Biden is the oldest president ever elected and will turn 82 shortly after the 2024 election. In that light, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has been prominent among Republicans targeting Harris on the campaign trail. The prospect of a Harris presidency should “send a chill up every American’s spine”, Haley recently told Fox News.Pelosi, however, spoke glowingly of her fellow Californian’s political skills.“People shouldn’t underestimate what Kamala Harris brings to the table,” she told CNN. “People don’t understand. She’s politically astute. Why would she be vice-president if she were not? But when she was running for attorney general in California [in 2010], she had 6% in the polls … and she politically astutely made her case about why she would be good, did her politics, and became attorney general.”Harris became a US senator in 2016, then mounted a presidential campaign in 2020, showing strongly at Biden’s expense on the debate stage but dropping out before the first vote. Biden mended bridges and named Harris his running mate.“She’s the vice-president of the United States,” Pelosi said. “People say to me, ‘Well, why isn’t she doing this or that?’ I say: ‘Because she’s the vice-president.’ That’s the job description. You don’t do that much. You know, you’re a source of strength, inspiration, intellectual resource. I think she’s represented our country very well at home and abroad.”On Thursday morning, Pelosi told MSNBC: “The Biden-Harris team is our team. We’re very proud of it. And we’re all going to work very hard to make sure that they are re-elected.”Biden and Harris seem set to face a rematch with Donald Trump, if not with Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, who is challenging for the Republican nomination (and who on Wednesday said Biden advised him to “stay close to the president and build that relationship” after he and Trump won in 2016).skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPence’s stint as Trump’s vice-president ended with the January 6 riot, when Trump supporters sought Pence at the Capitol, chanting that he should be hanged.On Wednesday, Pence said that showed his stint as vice-president “didn’t end the way I wanted it to”.Pelosi told CNN Trump’s attempt to overturn the last election meant “nothing less is at stake than our democracy … you hear that in the country. You hear that globally. And we have to remove all doubt that our democracy is strong.”Last Sunday, Harris was asked if she was ready to step up as president.“Yes, I am, if necessary,” she told CBS. “But Joe Biden is going to be fine. And let me tell you something: I work with Joe Biden every day.” More

Joe Biden said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because “they want to shut down the government”.Biden was speaking at a campaign event in McLean, Virginia, on Wednesday, a day after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, conceded to pressure from the right of his party and announced the inquiry.“I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me,” Biden said. “And now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”Without agreement on new funding by 30 September, the federal government will at least partially shut down. Hard-right Republicans are demanding cuts to some spending and increases in other areas, particularly immigration enforcement.Some made an impeachment inquiry – regarding the business affairs of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden – a condition of support for keeping the government open.Given he must run the House with just a five-seat majority, McCarthy is at the mercy of such pressure. With more than five Republicans having expressed skepticism about whether impeachment would be merited, the speaker skipped a vote on whether to open an inquiry.That followed the example of Nancy Pelosi, his Democratic predecessor, who did not hold a House vote before proceedings against Donald Trump began in 2019. But it also opened McCarthy to accusations of hypocrisy, given he excoriated Pelosi and recently told rightwing news outlets he would hold a vote.On Thursday, Pelosi told MSNBC: “Don’t blame it on me. Just take responsibility for what you were doing there, and don’t misrepresent the care that we took, the respect that we had for the institution to go forward in a way that really addressed the high crimes and misdemeanors of Donald Trump.”As spending bills remained in limbo, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting to say tensions between McCarthy and the hard right had prompted some forthright language from the speaker.“If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the fucking motion,” McCarthy said, according to Brian Mast of Florida.A motion to vacate would force a vote on whether McCarthy should stay in his role.McCarthy told reporters: “I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated. Frustrated with some people in the conference.”After an impeachment inquiry, the full House must vote on whether the president should be impeached. A yes vote sends the president to the Senate for trial. A vote there decides if the president will be acquitted, or convicted and removed.Trump was impeached twice, first for seeking political dirt on the Biden family and others in Ukraine, then for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress. The second Trump impeachment was the most bipartisan in history, with 10 House Republicans voting to impeach and seven Republican senators voting to convict. But enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal to see Trump acquitted.The other impeached presidents – Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) – also survived Senate trials. As Democrats now hold the Senate, the effort against Biden stands next to no chance of succeeding.In an interview broadcast on Thursday, Trump told the SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly his impeachments were the key driver of Biden’s.“I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them. And this is going to happen with indictments, too,” Trump said.The former president faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments, for federal and state election subversion, retention of classified information and hush money payments. Denying wrongdoing, he claims political persecution.In Virginia, Biden said: “So look, look, I got a job to do. Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”Nonetheless, the White House has reportedly spent more than a year setting up a war room to push back at Republican invective and seek to shape the media narrative as the impeachment process progresses.On Thursday, Biden’s spokesperson for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, jumped on remarks by the California Republican Darrell Issa, a member of the House judiciary committee that will take part in the impeachment inquiry.“There has to be an aha moment,” Issa told CNN, adding: “The actual participation [in Hunter’s deals] by the vice-president and now president, that still has to be discovered and or nailed down.”Issa, Sams said, had admitted Republicans were on “an evidence-free wild goose chase”.CNN also spoke to Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a veteran House Republican. Amid widespread questions about how voters will see impeachment proceedings against Biden, Cole said he did not see the move “as good politics” by his party. More

Already in a footrace for re-election, Joe Biden now faces an unwelcome impeachment inquiry. Against the backdrop of a likely government shutdown, the US again stands to be buffeted by our deep and wide partisan divide. Practically speaking, however, he will survive. Conviction by the Senate is a mathematical impossibility.Democrats are in control and Senate Republicans are nowhere near being onboard. “It’s a waste of time,” as one anonymous Republican senator told the Hill. “It’s a fool’s errand.” Said differently, impeachment will scar all concerned – Republicans included.Already, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, appears desperate and craven. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the same Republican senator remarked.Even so, Biden confronts rough political terrain. His numbers are underwater, and the US lacks confidence in his capacity to vanquish inflation. His age is a turn-off, too, rivaled only by the unpopularity of Kamala Harris, his running mate.Meanwhile, the indictment of Hunter Biden, the First Son, is a foregone conclusion, a matter of a few weeks not months. Some of the president’s past statements about his lack of nexus to Hunter and businesses do not withstand scrutiny, according to sworn statements. The Republican party possesses ammo.Hunter, in fact, did make money in China and Biden did meet with one of his associates. On top of it all, the president clings to his surviving son, inviting him to a state dinner and vacations with him. The psychodrama continues.Likewise, expect Peter Doocy of Fox News to remain parked at the pivot point between squeegee pest and human thorn. Just a reminder, it was Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that stuck with the Hunter Biden laptop story. There was a “there” there after all.Yet, this is only the half of the story. Impeachment will likely pave the way for Republican overreach and stories aplenty of the speaker being inept and beholden to Republican jihadists. It might even cost him his job. The latest polls peg McCarthy’s favorability at minus 16.While the public has little love for Biden, the impeachment drive could well strike swing voters as a bridge too far. First, the inquiry appears to be legally defective. McCarthy embarked on this voyage without an authorization vote and that may be a big deal, one that rules out the prospect of compliance or assistance from Merrick Garland’s justice department.Perversely here, Biden may owe Donald Trump a “thank you” of sorts. Back in September 2019, House Democrats initially launched their impeachment without a vote. A month later, one followed. Then in January 2020, Trump’s justice department formally determined that without an authorization vote, impeachment inquiries lack legal teeth.The Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel opined: “The House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony in support of the House’s power of impeachment.”Unfortunately for Trump and his allies, the opinion remains on the books and binds the present administration. As a result, the justice department and the White House will be able to smile as they stiff-arm House Republicans.Then there is McCarthy’s growing credibility problem. Two weeks ago, he told Breitbart that he had the votes in hand. On 1 September 2023, Breitbart’s headlines screamed: “EXCLUSIVE – McCARTHY DETAILS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCESS: ‘IF WE MOVE FORWARD,’ IT ‘WOULD OCCUR THROUGH A VOTE’ ON THE HOUSE FLOOR.”Not anymore. Pressed about his prior commitment, McCarthy grew testy, telling CNN: “I never changed my position.”At the same time, he may be facilitating the end of the current House majority and, by extension, his gig as speaker. Just as abortion limited Republican gains in the midterms, impeachment will likely remind purple America of the Republican party’s capacity for excess and extremism – particularly if House Republicans impose a prolonged government shutdown.Warning lights flash. “I recommend … against [an impeachment] inquiry unless more evidence that directly connects to President [Biden] is found,” Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, has said. He is also “skeptical” that a vote to launch the inquiry would have succeeded.Meanwhile, McCarthy can’t even move a partisan defense bill forward and continues to catch incoming fire from the right. The emperor may be stark naked. On Wednesday night, Matt Gaetz labeled him “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold on to power”.“Eventually, the lying has to come to an end and the votes are gonna start on a motion to vacate,” the Florida congressman explained.For his part, Andy Biggs has publicly attacked McCarthy for distracting from the budget fight. “I think the timing is interesting, don’t you?” the Arizona conservative hinted. “It might be seen by some as a deflection.”For that matter, “desperation” might be the better word. Even as McCarthy seeks to oust Biden, it is his own job that is now in jeopardy.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

A Georgia judge has ruled that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two defendants who are set to go to trial next month in the case accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee had set their trial to begin on 23 October. Trump and other defendants had asked to be tried separately from Powell and Chesebro, with some saying they could not be ready by the late October trial date.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, last month obtained an indictment against Trump and the 18 others, charging them under the state’s anti-racketeering law in their efforts to deny Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican incumbent.Willis had been pushing to try all 19 defendants together, arguing that it would be more efficient and fairer. McAfee cited the tight timetable, among other issues, as a factor in his decision to separate Trump and 16 others from Powell and Chesebro.“The precarious ability of the court to safeguard each defendant’s due process rights and ensure adequate pre-trial preparation on the current accelerated track weighs heavily, if not decisively, in favor of severance,” McAfee wrote. He added that it might be necessary to further divide them into smaller groups for trial.The development is likely to be welcome news to other defendants looking to avoid being tied by prosecutors to Powell, who perhaps more than anyone else in the Trump camp was vocal about publicly pushing baseless conspiracy theories linking foreign governments to election interferences.Another defendant in the Atlanta case, Rudy Giuliani, has sought to distance himself from Powell and spoke at length about her in an interview with special counsel Jack Smith’s team in Washington, according to a person familiar with his account who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Also, Trump-aligned lawyer Eric Herschmann, who in 2020 tried to push back against efforts to undo the election, told the congressional committee investigating the riot at the US Capitol on January 6 that he regarded Powell’s ideas as “nuts”.Chesebro and Powell had sought to be tried separately from each other, but the judge denied that request.Chesebro is accused of working on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Powell is accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in rural Coffee county.The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of alleged acts by Trump or his allies to undo his 2020 loss in Georgia, including suggesting the secretary of state, a Republican, could help find enough votes for Trump to win the battleground state; harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.Further explaining his decision to separate the others from Powell and Chesebro, McAfee said he was skeptical of prosecutors’ arguments that trying all 19 defendants together would be more efficient. He noted that the Fulton county courthouse does not have a courtroom big enough to hold 19 defendants, their lawyers and others who would need to be present, and relocating to a bigger venue could raise security concerns.Prosecutors also had argued that because each defendant is charged under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or Rico Act, the state plans to call the same witnesses and present the same evidence for any trial in the case. They told the judge last week that they expect any trial would take four months, not including jury selection.But McAfee pointed out that each additional defendant increases the time needed for opening statements and closing arguments, cross-examination and evidentiary objections. “Thus, even if the state’s case remains identical in length, and the aggregate time invested by the court is increased, the burden on the jurors for each individual trial is lessened through shorter separate trials,” he wrote.The judge also noted that to satisfy the demands by Powell and Chesebro for a speedy trial, he will try to have a jury seated by 3 November. “With each additional defendant involved in the voir dire process, an already Herculean task becomes more unlikely,” he wrote.McAfee also pointed to the fact that five defendants are currently seeking to move their cases to federal court and litigation on that issue is ongoing. If they were to succeed midway through a trial in the state court, it is not clear what the impact would be, McAfee wrote. More

Breathless coverage of the presidential horserace has begun, and it seems all but inevitable: we’re heading towards a Trump-Biden rematch. Democrats need to maintain their razor-thin Senate majority if they hope to enact President Biden’s second-term agenda – or, God forbid, fend off Trump’s.That prospect hinges on a few incumbents facing tough re-election fights. The most critical, must-win seat belongs to Sherrod Brown, a senator from Ohio.The son of a doctor father and activist mother, Brown received his political education in union halls in the House district he was elected to represent at the age of 23, and has touted “the dignity of work” ever since. He refused to register for a congressional healthcare plan for his first 18 years in the US House of Representatives, waiting until everyday Americans had access to a federally subsidized plan, too. He opposed free-trade deals from Presidents Clinton and Obama and proudly called himself a “Labor Democrat” before unions were cool.Over three terms, Brown has maintained his record as, by one measure, the 12th most progressive member of the US Senate, even as his constituency has grown increasingly more conservative. Brown won a third term in 2018 by seven points in a state that voted for Trump by eight points in the election that came before and the one that came after.Despite decades in Washington, Brown still strikes Ohioans as not only likable, but familiar. He wears a canary pin on his lapel, given to him by a steelworker to commemorate the struggle for workers’ rights. He loves telling people he drives a Jeep Cherokee made in Toledo. He brags about his wife, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer Connie Schultz, and his rescue pups, named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the labor organizer Walter Reuther. It seems that every profile ever written describes Brown as “rumpled”, “authentic” or “gravelly-voiced”.Unlike his fellow Ohio senator, JD Vance, Brown does not just play a populist for the press. When GM shuttered its Lordstown, Ohio, plant in 2019, putting thousands of auto workers out of work, Brown called local UAW leaders immediately to help. More recently, he led efforts to expand union protections for Ohioans building electric vehicle batteries.And while Biden has taken heat for failing to visit East Palestine, Ohio, following the February 2023 train derailment that spewed hazardous toxins into the air and displaced thousands of residents, Brown has visited the town six times. He’s currently urging the White House and Fema to issue an emergency declaration to get residents recovery resources they desperately need.As one voter, a 56-year-old veteran who lives outside East Palestine, told the Washington Post: “He’s always around when something is going on.”That seems to be his MO on Capitol Hill, too. As chairman of the Senate banking committee, Brown has found issues that align his pro-worker philosophy with popular, timely policies – including some that are even palatable to his Republican colleagues. Since the East Palestine disaster, he has partnered with Vance on railroad safety legislation. He is also working with Senator Tim Scott to crack down on fentanyl traffickers and punish failed banking executives by the end of this term.If Brown’s legislative stock is high, his electoral stakes are even higher. Democrats have 23 Senate seats up for re-election, and – assuming the vice-president, Kamala Harris, is still there to break the tie – they can only lose one to keep their majority. Though Republican operatives in the state admit defeating Brown will be a “dogfight”, current polls have him up by just 0.4 percentage points over one possible opponent, the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose. Both the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball call his race a tossup.Joe Manchin’s slide to the dark side and Kyrsten Sinema’s wildcard ways leave Democrats no room for error. If Brown loses, and takes the Democratic Senate with him, democracy hangs in the balance. Republicans will be free to appoint extremist judges, and shut down the government if they don’t get their way. And that’s if Biden wins a second term. If he loses, the parade of horrors will be far, far worse.Unlike fellow endangered conservative-state Democrats like Manchin and the Montana senator Jon Tester, Brown’s record is uncompromising on abortion rights and gun safety. Recent elections have proved that these are winning issues. To capture and grow this coalition, Brown must win re-election.A fourth Brown term would also show Americans that this pro-union unicorn need not be so unique. Indeed, the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman eked out his 2022 victory with a model similar to Brown’s: an unkempt, approachable guy from the rust belt who looks and talks like someone voters know.Sherrod Brown is democracy’s canary in the coalmine. If he goes down next year, the country won’t be far behind. Democrats in Ohio and across the country must turn out for Brown – at fundraisers, campaign events and at the ballot box.As we dive deeper into the 2024 election season, and the lunacy that will accompany the first presidential rematch since Eisenhower v Stevenson, the Democratic party must make re-electing Brown its highest priority.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation More

Mitt Romney’s long career in politics has taken him from the governor’s office in Massachusetts to presidential ballots nationwide in 2012 and finally to the Senate, where he became known as the Republican who stood up to Donald Trump.On Wednesday, Romney, 76, announced he would not stand for another six-year term as Utah’s senator next year, and made no secret that Trump’s presence at the heart of Republican politics was a factor in his decision.“We’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president. And Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters,” Romney told the Washington Post in an interview.The announcement attracted well wishes from fellow Republicans and even some Democrats, for whom he had become their chief antagonist in 2012 during his unsuccessful campaign to keep Barack Obama from a second term.The former Obama White House adviser David Axelrod tweeted that he disagreed with Romney “on some issues but respect him greatly for his courage, decency, long and distinguished service and palpable commitment to our country. He will be greatly missed but his parting message today about passing the torch offers a powerful example.”But Trump, the current frontrunner in the contest for the Republican nomination next year, made clear he was not ready to forgive the only GOP senator who had voted to convict him in both of his impeachment trials.“FANTASTIC NEWS FOR AMERICA,THE GREAT STATE OF UTAH, & FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY”, the former president wrote on his Truth Social account after Romney announced his decision, claiming that, as senator, Romney “DID NOT SERVE WITH DISTINCTION”.Romney had also clashed with Utah’s other Republican senator, Mike Lee. He did not endorse Romney during his Senate primary in 2018 and last year, Romney did not endorse Lee for another term, even as he publicly pleaded with him to “Please, get on board.” The hatchet appeared to be buried on Wednesday afternoon.“I want to thank [Senator Romney] for his many years of public service. I wish him the very best of success in his future endeavors, and I know that his family will enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with him,” Lee wrote on Twitter, which was recently renamed to X.Evan McMullin, the independent candidate who had briefly given the Lee campaign jitters last year but then lost overwhelmingly, was similarly gracious.“Senator Romney has proven to be one of the great patriots of our time, devoting his life to the preservation of American democracy and our Constitution – not for personal gain, but for true love of country,” he tweeted.In a statement, the top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said the chamber “is known to attract bright and proven public servants. However, we rarely get to welcome new senators already as accomplished and well-regarded as Mitt Romney. The Senate has been fortunate to call our friend from Utah a colleague these past four and a half years, and I am sorry to learn that he will depart our ranks at the end of next year.”Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, wrote on his official X account Romney “has served with distinction at the highest levels of government and we’re incredibly grateful for his commitment to this country”.On his personal account, Cox retweeted an excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Romney, published in the Atlantic today, that details how Romney wrote a text message to McConnell on the eve of 6 January, warning him of the threat posed by Trump’s most extreme supporters.“There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator – the President – is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require,” Romney wrote.He did not receive a response, according to the biography written by the Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins. More

A federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children.US district judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program. The judge’s ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the US supreme court, sending the program’s fate before the high court for a third time.“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote in his 40-page ruling. “The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation … The Executive Branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution – even to fill a void.”Hanen barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients during the expected appeals process. Hanen said his order does not require the federal government to take any actions against Daca recipients.Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing Daca recipients in the lawsuit, said it will ultimately be up to higher courts, including the supreme court, to rule on Daca’s legality and whether Texas proved it had been harmed by the program.“Judge Hanen has consistently erred in resolving both of these issues, and today’s ruling is more of the same flawed analysis. We look forward to continuing to defend the lawful and much-needed Daca program on review in higher courts,” Saenz said.The Texas attorney general’s office, which represented the states in the lawsuit, and the US Department of Justice, which represented the federal government, didn’t immediately return emails or calls seeking comment.The states have argued the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to first create the program in 2012 because it circumvented Congress.In 2021, Hanen had declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen’s concerns with a new version of Daca that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process.But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of Daca was still illegal. He had previously said Daca was unconstitutional and it would be up to Congress to enact legislation shielding people under the program, often known as “Dreamers”.Hanen also had previously ruled the states had standing to file their lawsuit because they had been harmed by the program.The states have claimed they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The states that sued are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.Those defending the program – the federal government, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the state of New Jersey – had argued the states failed to present evidence that any of the costs they allege they have incurred have been tied to Daca recipients. They also argued Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security the legal authority to set immigration enforcement policies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite previously declaring the Daca program illegal, Hanen had left the Obama-era program intact for those already benefiting from it. But he had ruled there could be no new applicants while appeals were pending.There were 578,680 people enrolled in Daca at the end of March, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.The program has faced a roller coaster of court challenges over the years.In 2016, the supreme court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded Daca and a version of the program for parents of Daca recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended Daca, allowing it to stay in place.In 2022, the 5th US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s earlier ruling declaring Daca illegal, but sent the case back to him to review changes made to the program by the Biden administration.President Joe Biden and advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass permanent protections for “dreamers”. Congress has failed multiple times to pass proposals called the Dream Act to protect Daca recipients. More

A federal judge has blocked part of a public health order that suspended the right to carry guns in public across Albuquerque, New Mexico, the state’s largest metro area, as criticism mounted over the actions taken by the governor and political divides widened.The ruling Wednesday by US district judge David Urias marks a setback for Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic governor, as she responds to several recent shootings that took the lives of children, including an 11-year-old boy as he left a minor league baseball game in Albuquerque.Lujan Grisham imposed an emergency public health order Friday that suspended the right to open or concealed carry of guns in public places based on a statistical threshold for violent crime that is only encountered in Albuquerque and its outskirts. The governor cited the recent shootings, saying something needed to be done. She acknowledged that some would ignore the order.Violators would have faced civil penalties and a fine of up to $5,000 by state police. The local sheriff and Albuquerque’s police chief had refused to enforce the order.Advocates for gun rights filed a barrage of legal challenges to the order in US district court in Albuquerque alleging infringement of civil rights under the second amendment. Republicans in the legislative majority have called for impeachment proceedings against the governor.Lujan Grisham has remained defiant despite protests that have drawn crowds to public squares in Albuquerque over recent days. The governor is testing the boundaries of her executive authority again after using public health orders for aggressive lockdowns during the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.Mothers and military veterans have been among those demonstrating, many with holstered handguns on their hips and rifles slung over their shoulders. They have voiced concerns about the ability to protect themselves from violent crime in a city that has been scarred by drive-by shootings and deadly road-rage incidents.Even top Democrats, including Raúl Torrez, the state attorney general,have suggested that the governor’s time would have been better spent developing comprehensive legislation to tackle the issue.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNew Mexico is an open-carry state, so the governor’s order suspending the open and concealed carry of firearms affects anyone in Bernalillo county who can legally own a gun, with some exceptions. Just more than 14,500 people in the county have an active concealed-carry license, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by the New Mexico department of public safety for the 2023 fiscal year. More