update - Fed'l judge rules Alina Habba is illegal and voids all her official actions
- Thread starter mandrill
- Start date
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled in favor of parents seeking to opt their children out of public school instruction that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs.
The case, brought by a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, sought a guaranteed exemption from the classroom reading of storybooks with LGBTQ themes, including same-sex marriage and exploration of gender identity.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson cast the dissenting votes in the 6-3 decision.
MORE: Supreme Court leans toward parents in dispute over LGBTQ storybooks in school
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said in the decision that refusing to allow parents to opt-out their kids from instruction that "poses a very real threat of undermining their religious beliefs and practices" violates the First Amendment protections for religious exercise.
The Montgomery County Board of Education's "introduction of the 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' rights to the free exercise of their religion," Alito wrote.
The court found that the parents are also likely to succeed in their lawsuit over free-exercise claims, and have shown they are entitled to a preliminary injunction while their lawsuit proceeds.
In her dissent, Sotomayor accused the court of inventing a "constitutional right to avoid exposure to subtle themes contrary to the religious principles that parents wish to instill in their children."
A U.S. Supreme Court police officer stands watch outside of the Supreme Court, June 26, 2025, in Washington.
Mariam Zuhaib/AP
She also reproduced in full one of the books at the heart of the dispute -- "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," an illustrated children's book about a gay couple and their niece -- in the appendix of her dissent. Alito accused the book of advancing a "specific, if subtle, message" about marriage -- that two people, regardless of their sex, can get married so long as they love each other -- that is "contrary to the religious principles that the parents in this case wish to instill in their children."
"The majority's myopic attempt to resolve a major constitutional question through close textual analysis of Uncle Bobby's Wedding also reveals its failure to accept and account for a fundamental truth: LGBTQ people exist. They are part of virtually every community and workplace of any appreciable size," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent while blasting Alito for his interpretation of the book. "Eliminating books depicting LGBTQ individuals as happily accepted by their families will not eliminate student exposure to that concept. Nor does the Free Exercise Clause require the government to alter its programs to insulate students from that 'message.'"
In 2022, after introducing several LGBTQ-themed books into its language arts curriculum, the Montgomery County school board allowed parents to opt out if the content was deemed objectionable as a matter of faith. One year later, officials reversed course and said the opt-out program had become unwieldy and ran counter to values of inclusion.
The parents alleged that use of the books in an elementary school curriculum -- without an opportunity to be excused -- amounts to government-led indoctrination regarding sensitive matters of sexuality. The school board insisted the books merely expose kids to diverse viewpoints and ideas.
Pending the completion of the legal challenge, the school board "should be ordered to notify them in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction," Alito wrote.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority signaled during oral arguments in April that it was poised to establish a right of parents to opt out for sensitive subjects, saying it should be common sense.
MORE: SCOTUS limits nationwide injunctions, partial win for Trump on birthright citizenship
Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case on behalf of the parents seeking the opt-out, called the ruling an "historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America."
"Kids shouldn't be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents' permission," Baxter said in a statement. "Today, the Court restored common sense and made clear that parents -- not government -- have the final say in how their children are raised."
An attorney representing the authors of some of the books involved in the case called the ruling "a deeply disappointing blow to the right to read under the First Amendment."
"It is a fundamental betrayal of public schools' duty to prepare students to live in a diverse and pluralistic society," attorney Elly Brinkley, with U.S. Free Expression Programs, said in a statement. "By allowing parents to pull their children out of classrooms when they object to particular content, the justices are laying the foundation for a new frontier in the assault on books of all kinds in schools."
Brinkley said opt-outs for religious objections "will chill what is taught in schools and usher in a more narrow orthodoxy as fear of offending any ideology or sensibility takes hold."
President Donald Trump called the ruling a "tremendous victory for parents" during a White House press briefing Friday.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, during the briefing, thanked the Supreme Court for the decision, saying that restoring parents' rights to decide their child's education "seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight."
"Now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct," Blanche said.
abcnews.go.com
The case, brought by a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, sought a guaranteed exemption from the classroom reading of storybooks with LGBTQ themes, including same-sex marriage and exploration of gender identity.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson cast the dissenting votes in the 6-3 decision.
MORE: Supreme Court leans toward parents in dispute over LGBTQ storybooks in school
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said in the decision that refusing to allow parents to opt-out their kids from instruction that "poses a very real threat of undermining their religious beliefs and practices" violates the First Amendment protections for religious exercise.
The Montgomery County Board of Education's "introduction of the 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' rights to the free exercise of their religion," Alito wrote.
The court found that the parents are also likely to succeed in their lawsuit over free-exercise claims, and have shown they are entitled to a preliminary injunction while their lawsuit proceeds.
In her dissent, Sotomayor accused the court of inventing a "constitutional right to avoid exposure to subtle themes contrary to the religious principles that parents wish to instill in their children."
A U.S. Supreme Court police officer stands watch outside of the Supreme Court, June 26, 2025, in Washington.
Mariam Zuhaib/AP
She also reproduced in full one of the books at the heart of the dispute -- "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," an illustrated children's book about a gay couple and their niece -- in the appendix of her dissent. Alito accused the book of advancing a "specific, if subtle, message" about marriage -- that two people, regardless of their sex, can get married so long as they love each other -- that is "contrary to the religious principles that the parents in this case wish to instill in their children."
"The majority's myopic attempt to resolve a major constitutional question through close textual analysis of Uncle Bobby's Wedding also reveals its failure to accept and account for a fundamental truth: LGBTQ people exist. They are part of virtually every community and workplace of any appreciable size," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent while blasting Alito for his interpretation of the book. "Eliminating books depicting LGBTQ individuals as happily accepted by their families will not eliminate student exposure to that concept. Nor does the Free Exercise Clause require the government to alter its programs to insulate students from that 'message.'"
In 2022, after introducing several LGBTQ-themed books into its language arts curriculum, the Montgomery County school board allowed parents to opt out if the content was deemed objectionable as a matter of faith. One year later, officials reversed course and said the opt-out program had become unwieldy and ran counter to values of inclusion.
The parents alleged that use of the books in an elementary school curriculum -- without an opportunity to be excused -- amounts to government-led indoctrination regarding sensitive matters of sexuality. The school board insisted the books merely expose kids to diverse viewpoints and ideas.
Pending the completion of the legal challenge, the school board "should be ordered to notify them in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction," Alito wrote.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority signaled during oral arguments in April that it was poised to establish a right of parents to opt out for sensitive subjects, saying it should be common sense.
MORE: SCOTUS limits nationwide injunctions, partial win for Trump on birthright citizenship
Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case on behalf of the parents seeking the opt-out, called the ruling an "historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America."
"Kids shouldn't be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents' permission," Baxter said in a statement. "Today, the Court restored common sense and made clear that parents -- not government -- have the final say in how their children are raised."
An attorney representing the authors of some of the books involved in the case called the ruling "a deeply disappointing blow to the right to read under the First Amendment."
"It is a fundamental betrayal of public schools' duty to prepare students to live in a diverse and pluralistic society," attorney Elly Brinkley, with U.S. Free Expression Programs, said in a statement. "By allowing parents to pull their children out of classrooms when they object to particular content, the justices are laying the foundation for a new frontier in the assault on books of all kinds in schools."
Brinkley said opt-outs for religious objections "will chill what is taught in schools and usher in a more narrow orthodoxy as fear of offending any ideology or sensibility takes hold."
President Donald Trump called the ruling a "tremendous victory for parents" during a White House press briefing Friday.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, during the briefing, thanked the Supreme Court for the decision, saying that restoring parents' rights to decide their child's education "seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight."
"Now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct," Blanche said.
SCOTUS rules in favor of parents seeking to opt children out of reading LGBTQ-themed books
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of parents seeking to opt their children out of public school instruction that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs.
abcnews.go.com
The Supreme Court on Friday granted a partial stay of nationwide injunctions issued against President Donald Trump's executive order to effectively end birthright citizenship, handing Trump a win amid his showdown with federal judges who've blocked parts of his second-term agenda.
The 6-3 opinion came from Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The court's three liberal justices dissented.
The court, however, said it was not deciding whether the executive order from Trump was constitutional, rather focusing on whether a single judge has the authority to issue universal injunctions.
"Government’s applications for partial stays of the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue," the opinion read.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru...ing-nationwide-injunctions/story?id=123272280
Trump took a victory lap in a rare appearance in the White House briefing room shortly after the decision came down.
"Amazing decision, one we're very happy about," Trump told reporters.
"This morning the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch," he said.
However, legal challenges will continue to Trump's Day 1 order to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to unlawful immigrants or those on a temporary immigrant status, as the court did not rule on the merits of the cases.
The individual plaintiffs in these cases remain protected under the injunctions issued.
"Prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship," Barrett said. "Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete."
Trump can move forward immediately, though, with developing plans to implement the birthright citizenship order -- which will not take effect for 30 days.
MORE: What to know about birthright citizenship as Supreme Court weighs blocks on Trump's order to end it
Friday's decision is a boost for Trump in his crusade against nationwide injunctions that have blocked some of the executive actions he's taken so far in his second term.
Supporters of nationwide injunctions say they serve as an essential check to potentially unlawful conduct and prevent widespread harm. Critics say they give too much authority to individual judges and incentivize plaintiffs to try to evade random assignment and file in jurisdictions with judges who may be sympathetic to their point of view.
The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen the morning before justices are expected to issue opinions in pending cases, in Washington, June 14, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her blistering dissent aloud from the bench, criticizing the court's majority.
"No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates," Sotomayor wrote. "Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from lawabiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship."
"The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief," she added. "That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent."
Sotomayor accused the Trump administration of "gamesmanship" and said with this ruling the Supreme Court's majority "plays along."
"Every conceivable source of law confirms, birthright citizenship is the law of the land," she wrote in dissent.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to underscore, in his view, the narrowness of the decision, insisting that class-action claims are still available and that the Supreme Court itself can and likely will review lower courts along the way with respect to scope of relief from an alleged illegal government policy.
Kavanaugh also noted that the Administrative Procedures Act remains an avenue for plaintiffs to bring challenges to presidential policies on a nationwide basis.
Reaction to the ruling was largely split along party lines, with Republicans calling it a win for the administration while Democrats expressed serious concern that Trump's actions could go unchecked.
"The Supreme Court’s decision to limit courts of their long-held authority to block illegal executive actions is an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X. "By weakening the power of district courts to check the presidency, the Court is not defending the Constitution -- it’s defacing it."
abcnews.go.com
The 6-3 opinion came from Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The court's three liberal justices dissented.
The court, however, said it was not deciding whether the executive order from Trump was constitutional, rather focusing on whether a single judge has the authority to issue universal injunctions.
"Government’s applications for partial stays of the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue," the opinion read.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru...ing-nationwide-injunctions/story?id=123272280
Trump took a victory lap in a rare appearance in the White House briefing room shortly after the decision came down.
"Amazing decision, one we're very happy about," Trump told reporters.
"This morning the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch," he said.
However, legal challenges will continue to Trump's Day 1 order to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to unlawful immigrants or those on a temporary immigrant status, as the court did not rule on the merits of the cases.
The individual plaintiffs in these cases remain protected under the injunctions issued.
"Prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship," Barrett said. "Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete."
Trump can move forward immediately, though, with developing plans to implement the birthright citizenship order -- which will not take effect for 30 days.
MORE: What to know about birthright citizenship as Supreme Court weighs blocks on Trump's order to end it
Friday's decision is a boost for Trump in his crusade against nationwide injunctions that have blocked some of the executive actions he's taken so far in his second term.
Supporters of nationwide injunctions say they serve as an essential check to potentially unlawful conduct and prevent widespread harm. Critics say they give too much authority to individual judges and incentivize plaintiffs to try to evade random assignment and file in jurisdictions with judges who may be sympathetic to their point of view.
The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen the morning before justices are expected to issue opinions in pending cases, in Washington, June 14, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her blistering dissent aloud from the bench, criticizing the court's majority.
"No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates," Sotomayor wrote. "Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from lawabiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship."
"The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief," she added. "That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent."
Sotomayor accused the Trump administration of "gamesmanship" and said with this ruling the Supreme Court's majority "plays along."
"Every conceivable source of law confirms, birthright citizenship is the law of the land," she wrote in dissent.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to underscore, in his view, the narrowness of the decision, insisting that class-action claims are still available and that the Supreme Court itself can and likely will review lower courts along the way with respect to scope of relief from an alleged illegal government policy.
Kavanaugh also noted that the Administrative Procedures Act remains an avenue for plaintiffs to bring challenges to presidential policies on a nationwide basis.
Reaction to the ruling was largely split along party lines, with Republicans calling it a win for the administration while Democrats expressed serious concern that Trump's actions could go unchecked.
"The Supreme Court’s decision to limit courts of their long-held authority to block illegal executive actions is an unprecedented and terrifying step toward authoritarianism, a grave danger to our democracy, and a predictable move from this extremist MAGA court," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X. "By weakening the power of district courts to check the presidency, the Court is not defending the Constitution -- it’s defacing it."
SCOTUS limits nationwide injunctions, partial win for Trump on birthright citizenship
The Supreme Court granted a partial stay of nationwide injunctions issued by district courts against Trump's executive order to effectively end birthright citizenship.
abcnews.go.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday fired at least three prosecutors involved in U.S. Capitol riot criminal cases, the latest moves by the Trump administration targeting attorneys connected to the massive prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Those dismissed include two attorneys who worked as supervisors overseeing the Jan. 6 prosecutions in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington as well as a line attorney who prosecuted cases stemming from the Capitol attack, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
A letter that was received by one of the prosecutors was signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter did not provide a reason for their removal, effective immediately, citing only “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” according to a copy seen by The Associated Press.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Friday evening.
The terminations marked yet another escalation of norm-shattering moves that have raised alarm over the Trump administration’s disregard for civil service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of the Justice Department’s independence from the White House. Top leaders at the Justice Department have also fired employees who worked on the prosecutions against Trump and demoted a slew of career supervisors in what has been seen as an effort to purge the agency of lawyers seen as insufficiently loyal.
Trump’s sweeping pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters have led to worries about actions being taken against attorneys involved in the massive prosecution of the more than 1,500 Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of them on his first day back in the White House, releasing from prison people convicted of seditious conspiracy and violent assaults on police.
During his time as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin in February demoted several prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 cases, including the attorney who served as chief of the Capitol Siege Section. Others demoted include two lawyers who helped secure seditious conspiracy convictions against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio.
apnews.com
Those dismissed include two attorneys who worked as supervisors overseeing the Jan. 6 prosecutions in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington as well as a line attorney who prosecuted cases stemming from the Capitol attack, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
A letter that was received by one of the prosecutors was signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter did not provide a reason for their removal, effective immediately, citing only “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” according to a copy seen by The Associated Press.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Friday evening.
The terminations marked yet another escalation of norm-shattering moves that have raised alarm over the Trump administration’s disregard for civil service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of the Justice Department’s independence from the White House. Top leaders at the Justice Department have also fired employees who worked on the prosecutions against Trump and demoted a slew of career supervisors in what has been seen as an effort to purge the agency of lawyers seen as insufficiently loyal.
Trump’s sweeping pardons of the Jan. 6 rioters have led to worries about actions being taken against attorneys involved in the massive prosecution of the more than 1,500 Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of them on his first day back in the White House, releasing from prison people convicted of seditious conspiracy and violent assaults on police.
During his time as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin in February demoted several prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 cases, including the attorney who served as chief of the Capitol Siege Section. Others demoted include two lawyers who helped secure seditious conspiracy convictions against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Justice Department abruptly fires 3 prosecutors involved in Jan. 6 criminal cases, AP sources say
The Justice Department has fired at least three prosecutors involved in U.S. Capitol riot criminal cases, according to two people familiar with the matter.
apnews.com
People keep reporting this as if there will never be a nationwide injunction again.
It's weird.
I don't think that the rightie majority is as ludicrous as some commentators suggest - aside from Thomas and Alito of course. There's an argument that in a legal system which appears to weight religious belief very heavily, opt-outs are legitimate.
I think the state's interest in having a cohesive core body of knowledge in its citizens should outweigh that right however and I side with the leftie minority.
They could. But those threads appear and die with only a couple of hundred views. This big thread appears to have gained almost 150k views in under 4 months though. Which is absolutely insane for a politics thread.
While the recommendations largely provide increases to immigration- and border enforcement-related funding provisions—roughly $151.3 billion—they also implicitly drive dramatic changes to immigration policy.
Legal immigration. The Judiciary bill risks turning legal immigration into a pay-to-play system, by significantly increasing fees on everything from asylum applications and work permits to family reunification and humanitarian protections like Temporary Protected Status (TPS). These fees, many of which would be layered on top of existing fees, could effectively put legal pathways out of reach for thousands of people. Take, for example, the new proposed fees for an asylum applicant who will need to wait at least 5 years to obtain a decision in the heavily backlogged immigration system: $1,000 (new application fee), $550 every six months for work authorization, and $100 every year for a pending application would result in at least $6,450 in filing fees during the 5-year wait. The new fees propose placing the burden of the backlogged immigration system on the applicants themselves. The steep fees would effectively block access to those unable to afford the new fees given that this cost alone represents nearly 43 percent of a person’s annual income who earns federal minimum wage working 40 hours per week.
Detention. The Judiciary bill provides $45 billion for building new immigration detention centers, including family detention facilities. This amount is 13 times ICE’s FY 2024 detention budget and would be a 364 percent increase on an annual basis that would primarily benefit private companies contracted to build and run detention facilities. With this funding, ICE could likely fund an increase in detention to 125,000 beds or higher, only just a bit below the current population of the entire federal prison system. The bill uses funding provisions to dismantle core legal protections for children by implicitly overriding protections found in the Flores litigation settlement agreement that limit the time minors can be detained.
The bill also authorizes the DHS Secretary to set minimal detention standards for detention facilities without having to go through normal review, creating a situation where private prison operators whose facilities fail to meet current standards could be granted contracts anyway. The consequences of providing such large sums of money to increase detention without commensurate oversight will exacerbate deleterious and inhumane conditions that have been endemic to the detention system for years, including medical neglect, overcrowding, overuse of solitary confinement, and preventable deaths.
Arrests. The Judiciary bill also directs $27 billion toward ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations and includes funding to hire an additional 10,000 ICE officers in five years. With this funding, the current administration will be poised to dramatically expand community arrests and expand cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies. Given the recent dismantling of three primary DHS oversight agencies, this funding would also rapidly expand ICE’s enforcement capacity at a time when the agency has failed to provide timely, accurate information on the whereabouts of those it has arrested.
Immigration Court. The Judiciary bill provides just $1.25 billion, a 30 percent annual budget increase, for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the country’s immigration court system. By providing only small additional sums to the immigration courts while significantly expanding the arrest and detention budget, the significant immigration court backlogs will increase dramatically particularly for people held in detention facilities. Immigrants held in detention could be forced to wait months between every hearing, while those going through court outside of detention would face even longer backlogs than today up to several years per case.
Children. The Judiciary bill charges families of unaccompanied children up to $8,500 to sponsor a child and subjects them and their household members to intensive surveillance. It removes existing statutory protections regarding licensing of family residential centers, which places children at risk of prolonged detention in unsafe conditions. And by requiring children to pay $1,000 to apply for asylum or $500 to apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile status, the bill may even place some children in a precarious situation just to pay for their chance at permanent safety.
Border. The Homeland Security bill invests $51.6 billion into border wall construction—more than 3 times what the Trump administration spent on the wall in his first term despite the failure of the wall to improve or contribute in any meaningful way to border management strategy. The Armed Services bill also includes $5 billion for the Department of Defense to support the military’s border operations, including deployment of military personnel for immigration enforcement, temporary detention of migrants, and deportations of migrants.
Judicial Oversight. The Judiciary bill includes provisions to limit the judiciary branch’s oversight over the federal government by limiting the ability of judges to hold the executive branch in contempt of court when it fails to obey court orders.
Legal immigration. The Judiciary bill risks turning legal immigration into a pay-to-play system, by significantly increasing fees on everything from asylum applications and work permits to family reunification and humanitarian protections like Temporary Protected Status (TPS). These fees, many of which would be layered on top of existing fees, could effectively put legal pathways out of reach for thousands of people. Take, for example, the new proposed fees for an asylum applicant who will need to wait at least 5 years to obtain a decision in the heavily backlogged immigration system: $1,000 (new application fee), $550 every six months for work authorization, and $100 every year for a pending application would result in at least $6,450 in filing fees during the 5-year wait. The new fees propose placing the burden of the backlogged immigration system on the applicants themselves. The steep fees would effectively block access to those unable to afford the new fees given that this cost alone represents nearly 43 percent of a person’s annual income who earns federal minimum wage working 40 hours per week.
Detention. The Judiciary bill provides $45 billion for building new immigration detention centers, including family detention facilities. This amount is 13 times ICE’s FY 2024 detention budget and would be a 364 percent increase on an annual basis that would primarily benefit private companies contracted to build and run detention facilities. With this funding, ICE could likely fund an increase in detention to 125,000 beds or higher, only just a bit below the current population of the entire federal prison system. The bill uses funding provisions to dismantle core legal protections for children by implicitly overriding protections found in the Flores litigation settlement agreement that limit the time minors can be detained.
The bill also authorizes the DHS Secretary to set minimal detention standards for detention facilities without having to go through normal review, creating a situation where private prison operators whose facilities fail to meet current standards could be granted contracts anyway. The consequences of providing such large sums of money to increase detention without commensurate oversight will exacerbate deleterious and inhumane conditions that have been endemic to the detention system for years, including medical neglect, overcrowding, overuse of solitary confinement, and preventable deaths.
Arrests. The Judiciary bill also directs $27 billion toward ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations and includes funding to hire an additional 10,000 ICE officers in five years. With this funding, the current administration will be poised to dramatically expand community arrests and expand cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies. Given the recent dismantling of three primary DHS oversight agencies, this funding would also rapidly expand ICE’s enforcement capacity at a time when the agency has failed to provide timely, accurate information on the whereabouts of those it has arrested.
Immigration Court. The Judiciary bill provides just $1.25 billion, a 30 percent annual budget increase, for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which oversees the country’s immigration court system. By providing only small additional sums to the immigration courts while significantly expanding the arrest and detention budget, the significant immigration court backlogs will increase dramatically particularly for people held in detention facilities. Immigrants held in detention could be forced to wait months between every hearing, while those going through court outside of detention would face even longer backlogs than today up to several years per case.
Children. The Judiciary bill charges families of unaccompanied children up to $8,500 to sponsor a child and subjects them and their household members to intensive surveillance. It removes existing statutory protections regarding licensing of family residential centers, which places children at risk of prolonged detention in unsafe conditions. And by requiring children to pay $1,000 to apply for asylum or $500 to apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile status, the bill may even place some children in a precarious situation just to pay for their chance at permanent safety.
Border. The Homeland Security bill invests $51.6 billion into border wall construction—more than 3 times what the Trump administration spent on the wall in his first term despite the failure of the wall to improve or contribute in any meaningful way to border management strategy. The Armed Services bill also includes $5 billion for the Department of Defense to support the military’s border operations, including deployment of military personnel for immigration enforcement, temporary detention of migrants, and deportations of migrants.
Judicial Oversight. The Judiciary bill includes provisions to limit the judiciary branch’s oversight over the federal government by limiting the ability of judges to hold the executive branch in contempt of court when it fails to obey court orders.
