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      I disagree with Mahmoud Khalil’s politics. But the deportation decision is abhorrent | Jo-Ann Mort

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      When the federal immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled in favor of allowing the government to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student in the US on a legal visa, her decision was based on “foreign policy concerns” presented by US secretary of state Marco Rubio. It was so shocking that I had to reread the news report several times before I could believe it.Rubio’s claim is based on Khalil’s leadership role in the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. I didn’t agree with Khalil’s politics when he led the protests and I don’t agree today with his politics, nor even his actions during the protests. But I’m unwavering in supporting his right to his views, and his right to shout them in what, until Trump took the reins, was our free American nation.As an immigration judge, Judge Comans couldn’t make a constitutional determination. Immigration judges are not actually part of the judicial branch of government; they are part of the executive branch and, as such, don’t rule on constitutional questions but only on issues of immigration law. Therefore, it’s likely – and hopeful – that on further appeal, Khalil’s constitutional right to free speech could be upheld, though less likely than it would have been before the weakening of our constitutional fiber under President Trump.Since Rubio recently argued that non-citizens, even if here legally, can be deported if they undermine US foreign policy aims, the administration has taken further intimidating action. Today, visa-holders and US visitors are finding their social media being examined and their phones taken at the border for searches.From the day he entered office, Rubio has shown himself to be a weak link in preserving the national interest, justifying a range of abuses under the guise of US foreign policy. He has completely crouched under the heavy arm of President Trump, foregoing many of his previously long-held beliefs in everything from support for Ukraine to the use of soft aid via USAID, and generally in promoting American values. A child of parents who came to the United States as emigres from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he once embraced democracy with as much bravado as he is now displaying in helping to sink it.To claim that one of the reasons for a deportation like this is to stop antisemitism, as the state department says, is really a ruse to garner support for the widening attack on campus free speech and universities. It is certainly not making Jewish students safer. On the contrary, dividing and conquering to strip higher education and free speech of their very essences endangers every group that has relied on the first amendment’s guarantee.It also strikes me as laughable that the secretary is claiming that Khalil’s presence in America is harming US foreign policy aims. After all, as I wrote here just last week, what in the world is US foreign policy, especially regarding the Middle East? There is no diplomacy and there are no stated foreign policy goals, unless you consider Trump’s dream of building hotel-casinos on Gaza’s beaches to be formal American policy.As the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu himself discovered when he traveled to the White House this week, Trump had nothing to offer him. Netanyahu came begging for tariff relief and a green light for continuing his war against Hamas, as well as an even brighter green light to bomb Iran. He was shocked when Trump announced during their joint press availability that he would send his adviser Steve Witkoff to discuss a peace agreement between the US and Iran. Netanyahu went home empty-handed on tariff relief, and stunned at Trump’s sudden dive into talks with Iran.But of course, neither the Gaza beach hotels nor, especially, the deportations of visa-holders are about foreign policy. Everything is about domestic policy; the actual purpose is to pit various groups of Americans one against the other. The memo circulated by Rubio argues that “while Khalil’s activities were otherwise lawful” his presence in the US would harm efforts by those who are implementing “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.Rubio went on to claim that “condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective”.What does this even mean? On the same day that Khalil’s freedom was being constricted, Witkoff, the White House adviser, had a four-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin, one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the world today. What is this administration’s plan for fighting antisemitism on a global scale? There is none, of course.Domestically, the president’s plan appears to be not only to divide and conquer, but also to weaken and even cripple institutions of higher education, the arts, and other critical underpinnings of democracy that keep American Jews – and all minorities – safe. Worse still, it is to simultaneously try to make us, American Jews, complicit in his evil dealings.The ripple effect of this ruling and the detention of other students, like Rümeysa Öztürk from Tufts University, is propelling many of us in the American Jewish community to act against the Trump administration. A new amicus brief filed by a coalition of 27 Jewish organizations, supported with pro-bono work by the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine (a firm that deserves a gold star for upholding our constitution, rather than making side deals with the president to crush it), says this: “Without presuming to speak for all of Jewish America – a diverse community that holds a multitude of viewpoints – amici are compelled to file this brief because the arrest, detention, and potential deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk for her protected speech violate the most basic constitutional rights.”Freedom of expression, particularly on matters of public concern, the brief makes clear, is a cornerstone of American democracy and extends to academic settings and campus discourse. I’m proud to say that my synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, in Brooklyn, is a signatory of the brief, along with an organization, New Jewish Narratives, where I serve on the board.Tonight begins the Jewish festival of Passover, a festival of liberation and freedom. It marks a journey that the ancient Jews who were slaves in Egypt took from servitude to freedom. It is a time when Jews around the world proclaim, “Let my people go,” as we see our own fight for freedom in the eyes of those who remain unfree. For me, the freeing of the Israeli hostages is central to the Passover message, as is the freedom of both the Palestinian people and the Israelis to live in a state where they are free from fear and have a vibrant democracy.It’s a vibrant democracy that I wish, too, for the United States. And, at my Passover table, I will pledge to fight to maintain and strengthen the bonds of all peoples here in the US toward collective action that defends and maintains our democracy. If Khalil’s right to remain in the US is not upheld, our nation will be weaker for it, and all our rights will be further endangered.

      Jo-Ann Mort, who writes and reports frequently about Israel/Palestine is also author of the forthcoming book of poetry, A Precise Chaos. Follow her @jo-ann.bsky.social More

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      Trump news at a glance: US can deport lawful resident for his views in ‘unjust and alarming’ court ruling

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      At the end of a tumultuous week, a US immigration judge has sided with Trump administration lawyers, ruling that Columbia University graduate and Palestinian organizer Mahmoud Khalil can be deported from the US for his views.The decision came on the same day Trump lawyers were criticized by another judge for defying an order to provide details on how they would return a wrongly deported man to the US.Meanwhile, the US president insisted his tariff war was going “really well” despite mounting fears of recession and Beijing raising its retaliatory tariffs on the US to 125%.Catch up with the key Trump administration stories of the day:Judge rules Mahmoud Khalil can be deported for his viewsMahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian organizer, is eligible to be deported from the United States, an immigration judge ruled on Friday during a contentious hearing at a remote court in central Louisiana.The decision sides with the Trump administration’s claim that a short memo written by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, which stated Khalil’s “beliefs and associations” were counter to foreign policy interests, is sufficient evidence to remove a lawful permanent resident from the United States. The undated memo, the main piece of evidence submitted by the government, contained no allegations of criminal conduct.Supporters of Khalil branded the decision as “unjust as it is alarming”.Read the full storyDoJ unable to tell court where wrongly deported man isLawyers for the Trump administration were unable on Friday to tell a federal court exactly where the Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego García is after he was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month. The judge, Paula Xinis, admonished the government at a heated hearing. “I’m not asking for state secrets,” she said. “All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: where is he?”Read the full storyHead of US military base in Greenland fired after JD Vance visitThe head of the US military base in Greenland has been fired for criticising Washington’s agenda for the Arctic island after JD Vance visited two weeks ago.Col Susannah Meyers, who had served as commander of the Pituffik space base since July, was removed amid reports she had distanced herself and the base from the US vice-president’s criticism of Denmark and its oversight of the territory.Read the full storyTrump insists tariff war going ‘really well’Donald Trump insisted his trade war with much of the world was “doing really well” despite mounting fears of recession and as Beijing hit back and again hiked tariffs on US exports to China.As the US president said his aggressive tariffs strategy was “moving along quickly”, a closely watched economic survey revealed that US consumer expectations for price rises had soared to a four-decade high.Read the full storyImmigration agents try to enter LA elementary schoolsImmigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.The Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades. They were turned away after the schools’ principals asked to see their identification. Los Angeles Unified is a sanctuary district and does not cooperate with federal immigration agencies.Read the full storyMore law firms make pro bono deals to appease TrumpDonald Trump said on Friday that five major law firms reached agreements to together provide his administration $600m in pro bono legal work, among other terms, to avoid executive orders punishing them, a significant capitulation to the president as he attacks the legal profession.The five firms – Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – are among the most prestigious and recognized firms in the US.Read the full storyOfficials told to denounce ‘anti-Christian’ colleaguesThe state department is ordering staff to report colleagues for instances of “anti-Christian bias” during the Biden administration, part of Donald Trump’s aggressive push to reshape government policy on religious expression in his first months back in office.Read the full storyTrump ally snipes at musician for Kennedy Center DEI concernsThe Kennedy Center’s interim executive director, Richard Grenell – a staunch ally of Donald Trump – accused a professional musician of “vapidness” after she emailed him over concerns of the now Trump-controlled center’s rollbacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Read the full storyLaw firms scrap DEI mentions from websitesNearly two dozen US law firms have quietly scrubbed references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from their website and revised descriptions of pro-bono work to more closely align with Donald Trump’s priorities, a Guardian review has found, underscoring the Trump administration’s successful campaign of intimidation against the legal profession.Read the full storyTrump weakens US defenses against foreign meddling, says reportThe Trump administration has weakened tools the US government uses to combat foreign-influence campaigns, even as covert attempts by Saudi Arabia and other “malign actors” to influence American policy are growing in “scope, sophistication, and reach”, according to a new Senate report.Read the full storyUK man’s tattoo ‘used by US officials’ to identify alleged gang membersA British man was shocked to discover that a photo of his tattoo was included in a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document used to identify alleged members of a notorious Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The Mississippi library commission has ordered the deletion of two research collections: the race relations database and the gender studies database. The collections were stored in what’s called the Magnolia database, which is used by publicly funded schools, libraries, universities and state agencies in Mississippi.

      Donald Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC) is facing a legal challenge from two US human rights advocates who argue it is “unconstitutional and unlawful”.

      California’s $59bn agricultural industry is bracing for disruption as Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to spike tensions and trigger economic turmoil with China – one of the state’s biggest buyers.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 10 April 2025. More

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      Documents reveal Trump’s plan to gut funding for Nasa and climate science

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      Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday.The administration is planning to slash budgets at both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Noaa) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), according to internal budget documents, taking aim specifically at programs used to study impacts from the climate crisis.Craig McLean, a longtime director of the office of oceanic and atmospheric research (OAR) who retired in 2022, told the Guardian that the cuts were draconian and would “compromise the safety, economic competitiveness, and security of the American people”.If the plan is approved by Congress, funding for OAR would be eviscerated – cut from $485m to $171m – dismantling an important part of the agency’s mission.All budgets for climate, weather and ocean laboratories would be drained, according to the document reviewed by the Guardian, which states: “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office.”“The elimination of Noaa’s research line office and all of its research capabilities is a crushing blow to the ability of our country to protect our citizens and also to lead the world,” said the former Noaa administrator Rick Spinrad, adding that the document included “an extraordinarily devastating set of recommendations”.The proposal would also cut more than $324m from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), instructing the agency to align its work with administration priorities to “unleash American energy”. Species-recovery grants, habitat conservation and restoration, and the interjurisdictional fisheries grant program, which supports coordinated management and research with the states, would all lose funding. The document also outlines a plan to move the NMFS under the US Fish and Wildlife Service.Noaa is facing a $1.3bn cut to overall operations and research, with various programs on the chopping block, and the National Ocean Service would be cut in half.Science done outside the agency would also be undermined with cuts to Noaa’s climate research grants program, which provides roughly $70m a year.“It’s a really disturbing and concerning development – but I would say it is not all that surprising,” Spinrad said of the plans outlined in the document, noting that there have been many indications the administration would take steps such as these. “But it also has an element of randomness associated with it,” he added. “There are specific programs called out, the reasons for which are absolutely not clear.”The fallout from cuts this deep, should Congress adopt the president’s plan, would be felt in communities around the world, and in far-ranging sectors, from agriculture to emergency management.“By making a complete divestiture in science and in our research enterprise, we are basically saying we are not interested in improving our quality of life or our economy,” Spinrad said.The administration also outlined plans to severely defund research at Nasa, the country’s space agency. The agency is slated for a 20% overall budget loss, but deeper cuts would be directed at programs overseeing planetary science, earth science and astrophysics research, according to Ars Technica, which first on Trump’s plans when agency officials were briefed last month.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNow documents have been issued to back up those plans, halving funding for science at Nasa.The plan for Nasa would also scrap a series of missions, including some that the federal government has already poured billions of taxpayer dollars into. The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, which could offer glimpses into distant galaxies after its scheduled launch next year, is among them, along with the Mars Sample Return and the Davinci mission to Venus. The Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which employs roughly 10,000 people, would also be closed.“This is an extinction-level event for Nasa science,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, told the Washington Post. “It needlessly terminates functional, productive science missions and cancels new missions currently being built, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. This is neither efficient nor smart budgeting.”Still not set in stone, these “passback” documents are a part of how the government goes about budgeting. They are issued by the White House to federal agencies before the discretionary budget is released and are seen as a guidance on presidential priorities. The numbers aren’t final and could be changed, and Congress will also have to act on the plans to finalize them.Spinrad is confident that many legislators won’t support the cuts. “Many of the actions put forward by [the White House’s office of management and budget] are in direct contradiction to congressional intent,” he said. “Zeroing out programs that Congress has worked hard to authorize over the years – that’s a clarion call to specific members and sponsors.”There’s also likely to be strong pushback from the public and from industries that rely on the tools and services made possible by the country’s scientists.But the drastic degree of these cuts also shows the administration’s position on climate science and its determination to hamper US research, experts say. That alone is enough to cause concern.“This proposal will cost lives,” McLean said of the document if it is enacted. “When a room full of doctors tell you that it’s cancer, firing the doctors does not cure you.” More

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      People in the US: tell us how you think Trump’s first 100 days have gone so far

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      On the eve of his inauguration in January, Donald Trump vowed to deliver the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”.Since taking office, the president has issued a flurry of executive orders that amount to a shock-and-awe campaign, and made a series of policy moves to dramatically reshape the United States.They range from imposing sweeping tariffs; establishing the “department of government efficiency”; gutting programs including USAID; declaring a national emergency on the southern border; attempting to put an end to birthright citizenship; attempting to deport US students for engaging in protest; and ending diversity programs in the federal government, to name a few.As the 100-day mark approaches, we want to hear from people across the political spectrum in the US on the second Trump administration. Tell us, in 100 words or less, what you think of the beginning of Trump’s second term and how you think he has or has not succeeded on his promise of an “extraordinary first 100 days”.We will curate 100 responses from people across the country. More

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      Trump DoJ unable to tell court where man wrongly deported to El Salvador is

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      Lawyers for the Trump administration were unable on Friday to tell a federal court exactly where the Maryland resident who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month is or how he is, as the judge admonished the government at a heated hearing.The US district judge Paula Xinis said it was “extremely troubling” that the Trump administration failed to comply with a court order to provide details on the whereabouts and status of the Salvadorian citizen Kilmar Abrego García and she wanted daily updates on what the government is doing to bring him home.“Where is he and under whose authority?” Xinis asked in a Maryland courtroom.“I’m not asking for state secrets,” she said. “All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: where is he?”The government side responded that it had no evidence that he is not still in El Salvador. “That is extremely troubling,” Xinis said.As Newsweek reported, Xinis added: “We’re not going to slow-walk this … We’re not relitigating what the supreme court has already put to bed.”The US supreme court on Thursday upheld the judge’s order to facilitate Abrego García’s return to the US, after a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his summary deportation on 15 March.Abrego García has had a US work permit since 2019 but was stopped and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers on 12 March and questioned about alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador made up chiefly of Venezuelans whom the government accuses of being gang members and assumed special powers to expel without a hearing.Xinis on Friday repeatedly pressed a government attorney for answers but the administration defied her order for details on how or when it would retrieve Abrego García and claimed she had not given them enough time to prepare.“I’m not sure what to take from the fact that the supreme court has spoken quite clearly and yet I can’t get an answer today about what you’ve done, if anything, in the past,” Xinis said.Drew Ensign, an attorney with the Department of Justice, repeated what the administration had said in court filings, that it would provide the requested information by the end of Tuesday, once it evaluated the supreme court ruling.“Have they done anything?” Xinis asked. Ensign said he did not have personal knowledge of what had been done, to which the judge responded: “So that means they’ve done nothing.”The administration said in a court filing earlier on Friday that it was “unreasonable and impracticable” to say what its next steps are before they are properly agreed upon and vetted.“Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,” the filing said.Abrego García’s lawyers said in a Friday court filing: “The government continues to delay, obfuscate, and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk.”The case highlights the administration’s tensions with federal courts. Several have blocked Trump policies, and judges have expressed frustration with administration efforts – or lack of them – to comply with court orders.Abrego García’s wife, US citizen Jennifer Vásquez Sura, has not been able to speak to him since he was flown to his native El Salvador last month and imprisoned. She has been rallying outside court and has urged their supporters to keep fighting for him “and all the Kilmars out there whose stories are still waiting to be heard”.The family sued to challenge the legality of his deportation and on 4 April Xinis ordered the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” his return. The administration challenged that order at the supreme court, which upheld Xinis’s order but said the term “effectuate” was unclear and might exceed the court’s authority.The justice department in a supreme court filing on 7 April stated that while Abrego García was deported to El Salvador through “administrative error”, his actual removal from the United States “was not error”. The error, department lawyers wrote, was in removing him specifically to El Salvador despite the deportation protection order.Asked at the White House media briefing on Friday if Donald Trump wants the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to bring Abrego García with him when he visits the US on Monday, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the supreme court’s ruling “made it very clear that it’s the administration’s responsibility to ‘facilitate’ the return, not to ‘effectuate’ the return”.Similarly, the administration’s court filing said: “The court has not yet clarified what it means to ‘facilitate’ or ‘effectuate’ the return as it relates to this case, as [the] plaintiff is in the custody of a foreign sovereign. Defendants request – and require – the opportunity to brief that issue prior to being subject to any compliance deadlines.”Maya Yang, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Ice can conduct enforcement actions in places of worship, US judge says

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      A federal judge on Friday sided with the Trump administration in allowing immigration agents to conduct enforcement operations at houses of worship despite a lawsuit filed by religious groups over the new policy.Dabney Friedrich, a US district judge in Washington, refused to grant a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs, more than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans.She found that only a handful of immigration enforcement actions had been conducted in or around churches or other houses of worship and that the evidence did not show “that places of worship are being singled out as special targets”.The groups argued the policy violated the right to practice their religion. Since Donald Trump retook the presidency in January, attendance has declined significantly, with some areas showing double-digit percentage drops, they said.The judge, though, found that the groups had not shown their drops were definitively linked to the church policy specifically, as opposed to broader increased actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or other agencies.“That evidence suggests that congregants are staying home to avoid encountering ICE in their own neighborhoods, not because churches or synagogues are locations of elevated risk,” wrote Friedrich, who was appointed by the Republican president during his first term.That means that simply reversing the policy on houses of worship would not necessarily mean immigrants would return to church, she found.On 20 January, his first day back in office, Trump’s administration rescinded a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy limiting where migrant arrests could happen. Its new policy said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” could conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval.Plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed the new DHS directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas” or “sensitive locations”.The ruling comes as Trump’s immigration crackdown hits courtrooms around the country. On Thursday alone, another judge cleared the way for the administration to require people in the country illegally to register with the government even as the US supreme court ordered the administration to work to bring back a man mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador.There have been at least two other lawsuits over that sensitive locations policy. One Maryland-based judge agreed to block immigration enforcement operations for some religious faiths, including Quakers.A judge in Colorado, though, sided with the administration in another lawsuit over the reversal of the part of the policy that had limited immigration arrests at schools. More

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      Immigration agents turned away after trying to enter LA elementary schools

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      Immigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.At a Thursday press conference, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades.Officials attempted to enter two south Los Angeles schools, Lillian Street elementary and Russell elementary, but were turned away after the schools’ principals asked to see their identification. Los Angeles Unified is a sanctuary district and does not cooperate with federal immigration agencies.The news comes as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks against international students and ramped up efforts to deport undocumented and documented immigrants alike. In January, homeland security rescinded Biden administration guidelines preventing its agents from entering “sensitive areas” including schools and churches.“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” former acting homeland security secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement announcing the new policy. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”In response, LA Unified began distributing “Know Your Rights” cards to students and the school police department issued a statement saying it would not “assist or engage in immigration compliance checks, immigration enforcement activity, or ICE-related task force operations”.“I’m still mystified as to how a first-, second-, third-, fourth- or sixth-grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation,” Carvalho said. “Schools are places for learning. Schools are places for understanding. Schools are places for instruction. Schools are not places of fear.”The superintendent told reporters that the immigration agents who arrived at the Los Angeles elementary schools said they wanted to see the “students to determine their well-being” as unaccompanied minors, and that they had received authorization to speak with students from their caretakers. He added that the district later spoke with the students’ caretakers and learned that was untrue.“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked,” the homeland security department said in a statement to Fox 11 Los Angeles.“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families. In less than 70 days, Secretary Noem and Secretary Kennedy have already reunited nearly 5,000 unaccompanied children with a relative or safe guardian.”Carvalho contested that, and said as an educator who entered the United States without authorization at the age of 17 himself, he felt “beyond my professional responsibility, a moral responsibility to protect these students”.The incident has drawn attention from congressional lawmakers, including Pasadena Democrat Judy Chu.“I’m absolutely incensed that DHS agents would try to enter elementary schools this week, and I’m so grateful to the brave LAUSD administrators who denied them entry. These are children who should be learning to read and write, not cowering in fear of being ripped away from their homes,” she said.“I’m concerned parents may keep their children home rather than risk sending them to school. As Angelenos, we must lock arms together in moments like these to protect kids from deportation squads and protect schools from Trump’s campaign of terror.” More

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      US House panel drops inquiry into Northwestern’s law school clinics

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      The US House education and workforce committee withdrew an investigation into Northwestern University’s law school clinics after professors there sued and alleged that the inquiry violated their constitutional free speech rights.The professors secured what amounted to a legal victory for them on Thursday, when the House committee withdrew its investigative requests with respect to the university and its law school’s Bluhm Legal Clinic program on Thursday.Citing reports of antisemitism on campus, House committee members had sought budget and personnel records over claims that the university was using “taxpayer-supported institutional resources for troubling purposes”.The mention of reported antisemitism on campus was contained in a 27 March letter that the committee sent to justify the investigation and was addressed to Northwestern University’s chairperson, Peter Barris, as well as its president, Michael Schill.“The Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law (Northwestern Law) is providing free legal representation in a civil suit to the organizers of an anti-Israel blockade of highway traffic to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport,” the House committee’s letter said. “This blockade resulted in the arrest of 40 participants. The fact that Northwestern, a university supported by billions in federal funds, would dedicate its resources to support this illegal, antisemitic conduct raises serious questions.”The letter also alluded to “broader concerns about the institutionalization of leftwing political activism at Northwestern Law”, adding that the school’s Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, led by the law professor Sheila Bedi, was using “Northwestern’s name and resources to engage in progressive-left political advocacy”.According to the letter, the House committee demanded that the university provide all written policies, procedures and guidance related to the function of the law school’s legal clinics, a detailed budget for the Bluhm Legal Clinic, and a list of its sources of funding. The committee also demanded the university turn over a list of all the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic’s payments to people or groups not employed by Northwestern and any of its clinics and centers since 2020.In addition, the committee asked to review all hiring materials and performance reviews for Bedi.In response, Bedi and a fellow law professor, Lynn Cohn, sued the committee, asserting that its investigation violated their and their clients’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process, among others.The committee subsequently withdrew its request – a move that a Thursday press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights described as a “victory for academic freedom, the rule of law, and bedrock constitutional principles”.In a statement accompanying the press release, Bedi said: “I filed this suit to defend my clients’ rights to representation, my students’ rights to learn, and my right to teach. But today’s decision won’t stop the federal government’s attacks on universities and the legal profession.“Educators and institutions must stand united to protect our students, our communities, and each other … We teach, we advocate, and we stand with communities demanding justice. That’s why Congress is targeting us.”Echoing similar sentiments, Cohn said: “Uniting to support the fundamental rights of all people can still be done even in these turbulent times. We hope others will join this effort – this legal challenge is far from over. Clinical legal educators won’t back down. We will keep doing what we do best: centering students, defending our clients, and standing firm in defense of justice and the rule of law.”Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday froze $790m for Northwestern University as part of the president’s increasing crackdowns on students and faculty members across US colleges who have expressed their opposition toward Israel’s deadly war on Gaza.In response to the federal crackdowns, more than 1,000 faculty members, alumni, students and attorneys have signed letters expressing their support for Northwestern University.One letter signed by hundreds of alumni in part said they were troubled “that the federal government would target legal scholars who have dedicated their careers to upholding constitutional liberties”, WWTW reports. More