Court Watch 2025/07/06 10:21
Eight men deported from the United States in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have now reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the State Department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The immigrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the Supreme Court, which had permitted their removal from the U.S. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the U.S.
“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” said Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement Saturday announcing the men’s arrival in South Sudan, a chaotic country in danger once more of collapsing into civil war.
The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the transfer of the men who had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan. That meant that the South Sudan transfer could be completed after the flight was detoured to a base in Djibouti, where they men were held in a converted shipping container. The flight was detoured after a federal judge found the administration had violated his order by failing to allow the men a chance to challenge the removal.
The court’s conservative majority had ruled in June that immigration officials could quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.
A flurry of court hearings on Independence Day resulted a temporary hold on the deportations while a judge evaluated a last-ditch appeal by the men’s before the judge decided he was powerless to halt their removals and that the person best positioned to rule on the request was a Boston judge whose rulings led to the initial halt of the administration’s effort to begin deportations to South Sudan.
By Friday evening, that judge had issued a brief ruling concluding the Supreme Court had tied his hands.
The men had final orders of removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said. Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands.

Legal Insight 2025/07/02 10:22
The International Criminal Court has been targeted by a “sophisticated” cyberattack and is taking measures to limit any damage, the global tribunal announced Monday.
The ICC, which also was hit by a cyberattack in 2023, said the latest incident had been contained but did not elaborate further on the impact or possible motive.
“A Court-wide impact analysis is being carried out, and steps are already being taken to mitigate any effects of the incident,” the court said in a statement.
The incident happened in the same week that The Hague hosted a summit of 32 NATO leaders at a conference center near the court amid tight security including measures to guard against cyberattacks.
The court declined to say whether any confidential information had been compromised.
The ICC has a number of high-profile investigations and preliminary inquiries underway in nations around the world and has in the past been the target of espionage.
In 2022, a Dutch intelligence agency said it had foiled a plot by a Russian spy using a false Brazilian identity to work as an intern at the court, which is investigating allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and has issued a war crimes arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
Arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza have also drawn ire. U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February and earlier this month also sanctioned four judges at the court.
The court is still feeling the effects of the last cyberattack, with wifi still not completely restored to its purpose-built headquarters.

Headline Legal News 2025/06/28 11:32
The legal battle over President Donald Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration’s major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions.
Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent.
The high court’s ruling sends cases challenging the president’s birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president’s policy remains uncertain.
Here’s what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court’s ruling and what happens next.
What does birthright citizenship mean?
Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.
The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.
Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., no matter their parents’ legal status.
It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.
Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship
Trump’s executive order, signed in January, seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. It’s part of the hardline immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration.”
Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” – saying it means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally.
A series of federal judges have said that’s not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom.
In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed” Trump’s interpretation of birthright citizenship.
Is Trump’s order constitutional? The justices didn’t say
The high court’s ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge’s authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president’s authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters.
But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order.
“The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges’ decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor.
Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is “very confident” that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case.
Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps
The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps.
The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump’s order.
But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor.
“It’s not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,” said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions.

Court News 2025/06/23 11:31
Former Del. Jay Jones will look to be the face of legal resistance to President Donald Trump in Virginia after winning Tuesday’s closely watched Democratic state primary for attorney general.
Jones will face Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in the November general election. His victory was a critical step for Democrats in rounding out their ticket ahead of a bellwether election later this year.
Democrats are also nominating their pick for lieutenant governor from a field of six candidates. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi led Former Richmond City Mayor Levar Stoney in the tightly locked race Tuesday night, and she declared victory, but The Associated Press deemed the race too early to call.
The November election is sure to make history as Virginia is set to elect its first female governor since the state’s first governorship 250 years ago. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who ran for the Democratic nomination unopposed, will battle Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — the only Republican who qualified for the ballot.
Virginia is one of two states that host statewide elections the year after a presidential election — New Jersey is the other — and the races are typically seen as referendums on the party in power before Congress heads into midterm elections.
Analysts will be looking for clues in both states about voter sentiment with Trump back in the Oval Office and Republicans controlling power in Washington.
Democrats’ hold on Virginia has slipped in recent years, moving it close to swing-state status nationally. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021.
Still, Democrats have history on their side: The party of the sitting president typically suffers defeat in Virginia’s statewide races. And considering Trump has never won the state, Democrats are probably better positioned to make gains once their ticket solidifies.
Jones won the Democratic nomination in the race for attorney general despite his opponent casting him as lacking criminal prosecutorial experience.
Jones, who represented Norfolk in the House of Delegates for four years, comes from a long line of Hampton Roads politicians. His father was also a delegate, and his grandfather was the first Black member of the Norfolk School Board. Jones previously ran for attorney general in 2021 but lost the primary to Democratic incumbent Mark Herring.
He defeated Democrat Shannon Taylor, who has served more than a decade as the top prosecutor in the suburbs outside Richmond after flipping the open seat in 2011.
On the campaign trail, Jones touted himself as a candidate with the experience best suited for the job: He had worked as an assistant attorney general in Washington, where he said he had litigated consumer protection cases.
If elected attorney general, he also vowed to push back against Trump in court.
“I am ready for this fight and to win this November,” Jones said in a victory statement.
The six Democrats vying to be Virginia’s next lieutenant governor aren’t all that different on the issues: They support rights to abortion, a living wage, affordable housing and accessible health care. They also share similar criticisms of Trump.
The candidates notably fracture along regional lines.
Stoney has touted his ties to the Democratic Party and experience working under former Govs. Mark Warner and Terry McAuliffe.
Hashmi is also from the Richmond area, representing part of the city and suburbs. She has pushed reproductive health in her bid and has been endorsed by abortion rights political action committees.
Virginia Sen. Aaron Rouse, from Virginia Beach with ties to southwest Virginia, has also highlighted his legislative accomplishments.
Prince William County School Board Chair Barbur Lateef, former federal prosecutor Victor Salgado and retired U.S. Department of Labor worker Alex Bastani are from northern Virginia.
Only one Republican candidate in each statewide contest is advancing to the ballot.
Earle-Sears became the gubernatorial nominee after Republicans Dave LaRock and Amanda Chase failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Both LaRock and Chase initially challenged Earle-Sears for not being fully aligned with Trump.
Conservative talk-radio host John Reid became the de facto nominee for lieutenant governor after his primary opponent left the race, and despite intraparty quarreling over whether he was tied to a social media account reposting pornography.
Miyares sailed to his spot on the ballot as the nominee for attorney general after announcing his reelection bid. On Tuesday night, he said of Jones’ victory: “My opponent’s ideological record makes Virginia families less safe and our streets more violent.”
All 100 seats of the House of Delegates are up for election in November.
In Virginia’s more competitive districts, Democrat May Nivar won her primary race and will be taking on Republican incumbent Del. David Owen in a Richmond-area district that House liberals are vying to flip. Democrat Lindsey Dougherty won her primary race and will battle Republican Del. Carrie Coyner in a Petersburg-area district.

Legal Interview 2025/06/19 11:30
Former Del. Jay Jones will look to be the face of legal resistance to President Donald Trump in Virginia after winning Tuesday’s closely watched Democratic state primary for attorney general.
Jones will face Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in the November general election. His victory was a critical step for Democrats in rounding out their ticket ahead of a bellwether election later this year.
Democrats are also nominating their pick for lieutenant governor from a field of six candidates. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi led Former Richmond City Mayor Levar Stoney in the tightly locked race Tuesday night, and she declared victory, but The Associated Press deemed the race too early to call.
The November election is sure to make history as Virginia is set to elect its first female governor since the state’s first governorship 250 years ago. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who ran for the Democratic nomination unopposed, will battle Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — the only Republican who qualified for the ballot.
Virginia is one of two states that host statewide elections the year after a presidential election — New Jersey is the other — and the races are typically seen as referendums on the party in power before Congress heads into midterm elections.
Analysts will be looking for clues in both states about voter sentiment with Trump back in the Oval Office and Republicans controlling power in Washington.
Democrats’ hold on Virginia has slipped in recent years, moving it close to swing-state status nationally. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021.
Still, Democrats have history on their side: The party of the sitting president typically suffers defeat in Virginia’s statewide races. And considering Trump has never won the state, Democrats are probably better positioned to make gains once their ticket solidifies.
Jones won the Democratic nomination in the race for attorney general despite his opponent casting him as lacking criminal prosecutorial experience.
Jones, who represented Norfolk in the House of Delegates for four years, comes from a long line of Hampton Roads politicians. His father was also a delegate, and his grandfather was the first Black member of the Norfolk School Board. Jones previously ran for attorney general in 2021 but lost the primary to Democratic incumbent Mark Herring.
He defeated Democrat Shannon Taylor, who has served more than a decade as the top prosecutor in the suburbs outside Richmond after flipping the open seat in 2011.
On the campaign trail, Jones touted himself as a candidate with the experience best suited for the job: He had worked as an assistant attorney general in Washington, where he said he had litigated consumer protection cases.
If elected attorney general, he also vowed to push back against Trump in court.
“I am ready for this fight and to win this November,” Jones said in a victory statement.
The six Democrats vying to be Virginia’s next lieutenant governor aren’t all that different on the issues: They support rights to abortion, a living wage, affordable housing and accessible health care. They also share similar criticisms of Trump.
The candidates notably fracture along regional lines.
Stoney has touted his ties to the Democratic Party and experience working under former Govs. Mark Warner and Terry McAuliffe.
Hashmi is also from the Richmond area, representing part of the city and suburbs. She has pushed reproductive health in her bid and has been endorsed by abortion rights political action committees.
Virginia Sen. Aaron Rouse, from Virginia Beach with ties to southwest Virginia, has also highlighted his legislative accomplishments.
Prince William County School Board Chair Barbur Lateef, former federal prosecutor Victor Salgado and retired U.S. Department of Labor worker Alex Bastani are from northern Virginia.
Only one Republican candidate in each statewide contest is advancing to the ballot.
Earle-Sears became the gubernatorial nominee after Republicans Dave LaRock and Amanda Chase failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Both LaRock and Chase initially challenged Earle-Sears for not being fully aligned with Trump.
Conservative talk-radio host John Reid became the de facto nominee for lieutenant governor after his primary opponent left the race, and despite intraparty quarreling over whether he was tied to a social media account reposting pornography.
Miyares sailed to his spot on the ballot as the nominee for attorney general after announcing his reelection bid. On Tuesday night, he said of Jones’ victory: “My opponent’s ideological record makes Virginia families less safe and our streets more violent.”
All 100 seats of the House of Delegates are up for election in November.
In Virginia’s more competitive districts, Democrat May Nivar won her primary race and will be taking on Republican incumbent Del. David Owen in a Richmond-area district that House liberals are vying to flip. Democrat Lindsey Dougherty won her primary race and will battle Republican Del. Carrie Coyner in a Petersburg-area district.

Court News 2025/06/15 11:05
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 a “corrupt quid pro quo bargain” with the Trump administration in exchange for the U.S. Justice Department dropping criminal charges against him.
Rosado temporarily blocked the executive order in April. In granting a preliminary injunction, she said city council members have “shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (”ICE”) back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges.”
Rosado cited a number of factors, including U.S. border czar Tom Homan’s televised comments in February that if Adams did not come through, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’ ”
Adams has repeatedly denied making a deal with the administration over the criminal case. He has said he deputized his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, to handle decision-making on the return of ICE to Rikers Island to make sure there was no appearance of any conflict of interest.
Rosado said that Mastro reports to Adams and “cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams’ conflicts.”
Mastro said in a prepared statement Friday the administration was confident they will prevail in the case. “Let’s be crystal clear: This executive order is about the criminal prosecution of violent transnational gangs committing crimes in our city. Our administration has never, and will never, do anything to jeopardize the safety of law-abiding immigrants, and this executive order ensures their safety as well,” Mastro said.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running in the Democratic primary for mayor, called the decision a victory for public safety.
“New Yorkers are counting on our city to protect their civil rights, and yet, Mayor Adams has attempted to betray this obligation by handing power over our city to Trump’s ICE because he is compromised,” she said in a prepared statement.
