Appeals court blocks Ohio's ban on gender-affirming care for minors
The state's Republican attorney general vowed an immediate appeal.
On Tuesday, the state's 10th District Court of Appeals reversed a decision made last summer to allow the law to go into effect after a judge found it 'reasonably limits parents' rights.' The law bans counseling, gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for minors, unless they are already receiving such therapies and a doctor deems it risky to stop.
The litigation was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio and the global law firm Goodwin, who argued the law not only denies health care to transgender children and teens, but specifically discriminates against them accessing it.
The court agreed and cited a number of flaws in the lower court's reasoning.
Judge Carly Edelstein wrote in the ruling that the Ohio law does not outlaw identical drugs when they're used for other reasons, only when they're used for gender transitioning, which makes it discriminatory. She also said that a prescription ban is not a reasonable exercise of the state's police power when it is weighed against the rights of parents to care for their children.
Addressing proponents' arguments that minors are not in a position to understand the long-term impacts such procedures could have on their lives, the judge said that, while they may not be, their parents are.
'Thus, in considering whether the H.B. 68 ban is reasonable, it is necessary to keep in mind that the law recognizes the maturity, experience, and capacity of parents to make difficult judgments and act in their children's best interest,' she wrote.
The ACLU called the ruling 'historic.'
'This win restores the right of trans youth in Ohio to choose vitally important health care, with the support of their families and physicians,' Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. 'We are gratified by the Court's decision, which soundly rejects this interference of politicians with Ohioans' bodily autonomy.'
Tuesday's ruling marked the second blow for the legislation.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the law in December 2023, after touring the state to visit children's hospitals and talking to families of children with gender dysphoria. He cast his action as thoughtful, limited and 'pro-life' — citing the suicide risks associated with minors who don't get proper treatment for gender dysphoria.
DeWine simultaneously announced plans to move to administratively ban gender-affirming surgeries until a person is 18, and to position the state to better regulate and track gender-affirming treatments in both children and adults. He hoped the move would allay concerns of fellow Republicans at the Ohio Statehouse, but the administration swiftly backed off that plan after transgender adults raised serious concerns about how state regulations could impact their lives and health.
Ohio lawmakers stood their ground on the bill, easily overriding his veto — making Ohio the 23rd state to ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth.
Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a candidate to succeed DeWine next year, quickly released a statement saying that he will appeal Tuesday's ruling.
'This is a no-brainer – we are appealing that decision and will seek an immediate stay,' he said. 'There is no way I'll stop fighting to protect these unprotected children.'
Levenson acknowledged Tuesday that it's likely not the end of the legal dispute, but said her organization remained 'fervently committed' to preventing the bill from ever taking effect again.
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USA Today
17 minutes ago
- USA Today
ICE detention is growing in the South. This state was the first.
Louisiana, long known for its 'prison economy,' now houses more ICE detention facilities than any other non-border state. WINN PARISH, LA – Far from the jazz clubs and nightlife of New Orleans, thousands await their fate inside immigration jails. Louisiana has more dedicated Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers than any other state besides Texas – nine total – after it converted nearly half a dozen correctional facilities to immigrant detention. Most are remote, scattered near farms and forests. Among the sites is a unique "staging facility" on a rural airport tarmac for rapid deportations. President Donald Trump is increasingly leaning on Republican-led Southern states to detain and deport millions of immigrants ‒ from "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades to the expansion of a sprawling Georgia immigration facility. Far from the U.S.-Mexico border, Mississippi has the ICE jail with the highest average daily population. But Louisiana was the first non-border state to surge immigration detention capacity, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Tulane University Law School. The state opened five new facilities to detain immigrants in 2019, during the first Trump administration, and vastly expanded the number of detainees during the Biden administration. Immigrants are sent here from all over the country, far from their families, communities and, often, their lawyers. The Trump administration has confined some of its highest-profile detainees in Louisiana, including now-released Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil and Harvard University scientist Kseniia Petrova. The state's largest immigration jail, Winn Correctional Center, is tucked deep into dense pine woods nearly five hours northwest of New Orleans. The site is so remote that, for years, online maps routinely sent visitors the wrong way down a dirt road. A warning sign cautions visitors: "This property is utilized for the training of chase dogs." Other states might follow Louisiana's example as more federal funds flow to ICE detention. Congress recently authorized the Trump administration to spend $45 billion over the next four years to expand immigration jails around the country. That's nearly four times ICE's previous annual detention budget. USA TODAY traveled to four of Louisiana's nine ICE facilities, hoping to see firsthand what life is like for immigrants detained there. But the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied multiple requests for a tour of any of the locations. In an emailed statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE originally expanded its detention capacity in Louisiana "to address the increasing number of individuals apprehended at the border" under the Biden administration. "ICE continues to explore all options to meet its current and future detention requirements while removing detainees as quickly as possible from the U.S.," she said. Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, described the state as key to Trump's promised mass deportation campaign. "Louisiana really is the epicenter for a lot of what is currently taking place with this administration," Ahmed said. "It's an outcropping of a prison economy that Louisiana has survived on for a long, long time." Deportation hub far from the border Louisiana found its foothold as a deportation hub at the end of Trump's first term, when the administration was looking to expand immigrant detention. The state had reformed its criminal justice system in 2017, with bipartisan support, to reduce sentences for low-level offenders. That had the effect of dramatically decreasing the state's prison population and freeing thousands of incarcerated people – mainly Black men and women. At the time, the Black imprisonment rate was nearly four times the rate of White imprisonment in Louisiana, according to the ACLU. Louisiana eventually rolled back the reforms. But racial justice activists briefly celebrated a win. Then ICE came knocking. The first Trump administration, and later the Biden administration, wanted to detain more illegal border crossers. Louisiana offered advantages: empty prisons, employees already trained in corrections, and access to the Alexandria airport with a detention facility and a history of deportation flights. It also has some of the country's most conservative immigration judges, as well as a federal appeals court that, in immigration cases, often sides with the government, lawyers say. "Louisiana had the infrastructure already there," said Homero López, legal director of New Orleans-based Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, a nonprofit that provides free representation. "ICE comes in saying, 'Y'all have got the space. We've got the people. We'll pay you double what the state was paying.' That's why the expansion was so fast." Louisiana's rural communities offered advantages for ICE Many Americans know Louisiana by its crown jewel, New Orleans, the state's tourism mecca, where social norms and politics are as liberal as the flow of alcohol on Bourbon Street. But Louisiana is largely wooded, rural, proudly conservative and deeply Christian. County governments are called parishes and the poverty rate is the highest in the nation. "People want jobs and who's to blame them?" said Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University research assistant professor who studies immigration enforcement. "It's fairly easy to promise jobs by setting up a detention facility." Rural Louisiana used to make a living from oil and timber. Logging trucks still rumble down forested two-lane roads, but the decline in natural resources and price unpredictability drove some communities to look for new industries. Prisons and now immigration detention deliver good-paying jobs and economic development to places like Winn, Ouachita and LaSalle parishes. LaSalle was one of the first to see the potential. In 2007, local leaders in the parish seat of Jena – current population 4,155 – wanted to diversify the economy. A sprawling juvenile detention facility north of town sat empty. When GEO Group, the nation's largest private detention contractor, swooped in with an ICE contract in hand, local leaders welcomed the opportunity. "Not having to build an entirely new facility was probably a key factor to them locating here," said Craig Franklin, editor of the weekly Jena Times. Plus, "our advantage to a strong employee pool was likely a factor." In Ouachita Parish, the mayor and council of Richwood ‒ population 3,881 ‒ debated whether to approve an ICE detention contract. Mayor Gerald Brown didn't have a vote, but he supported the conversion to ICE detention, he said. "Richwood Correctional Center is one of our biggest employers," Brown told USA TODAY. "There was a lot of back and forth. We did town halls, and we had meetings." The town stood to gain new income as an intermediary between ICE and the private operator, LaSalle Corrections. When it was a jail, the town earned a $112,000 a year fee. Now that it's an ICE detention center, the town is getting about $412,000 a year. "The financial windfall for the community was something I certainly couldn't turn a blind eye to," Brown said. Remote ICE has consequences for the detained The willingness of rural communities to house ICE facilities is part of the draw to Louisiana, researchers who study immigration detention say. Another factor: When ICE tries to open new detention centers near big cities, the agency is often met with resistance from immigrant rights activists and residents with "not in my backyard" arguments. But attorneys say the rural locations have real consequences for the people detained. Data shows that having access to an attorney dramatically improves a detainee's chance of winning release and a chance at staying in the United States. But it's hard for attorneys to get to many of the facilities; Ahmed regularly drives three to seven hours to visit immigrant clients across the state. Baher Azmy, legal director of the New York-based Center of Constitutional Rights, represented Khalil, the Columbia University activist, during his more than three-month detention at the Central Louisiana Processing Center in Jena. He visited twice and said he was struck by its remoteness, the utter lack of space for attorneys to meet their clients and the no-contact family visitation conducted behind plexiglass. Accommodations were made for Khalil to see his wife and newborn baby in a separate room, after a court ordered it. "Getting there was an all-day proposition," Azmy said. "It reminded me of my early trips to Guantanamo," the military jail on the island of Cuba, where he represented clients accused of terrorism in the years after the 9/11 attacks. "The desolation, the difficulty getting there. The visiting conditions were better in Guantanamo than in Jena. As horrible as Guantanamo was, I could hug my client." According to ICE, rules and accommodations at different facilities can depend on their design and capacity, as well as contractual agreements. "Allegations that ICE detention facilities have improper conditions are unequivocally false and designed to demonize ICE law enforcement," McLaughlin said. "ICE follows national detention standards." Exponential expansion of ICE detention The United States has consistently grown its immigration detention through both Republican and Democratic administrations. But the average number of immigrants in detention on any given day has risen rapidly over the past six months, from roughly 40,000 people at the end of the Biden administration in January to more than 58,000 in early July. Under President Joe Biden, ICE moved thousands of migrants who sought asylum at the United States-Mexico border over to Louisiana detention centers, said the ACLU's Ahmed. Now, the centers are filled with people picked up in the country's interior. Nearly half of those in ICE detention in early July had no criminal record or pending charges, according to ICE data. They faced civil immigration violations. When determining whether to send a detainee to Louisiana, ICE considers bed space availability, the detainee's medical and security needs and proximity to transportation, according to an agency statement. The average daily population in Louisiana ICE facilities topped 7,300 in early July. That compares to roughly 2,000 ICE detainees in 2017 at the start of the first Trump administration, according to data collected by TRAC at Syracuse University. Some of that increase is due to a Trump administration decision to withdraw legal status from thousands of immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration and followed the rules then in place. "These are mothers. These are children. These are students. And these are individuals who often had status that was very much legal, that's then been taken away by the administration," Ahmed said. "So what we are seeing is the rendering of documented people to undocumented by the stroke of a pen of the United States government." More: He won asylum and voted for Trump. Now his family may have to leave. Three times this spring and early summer, Will Trim traveled to Richwood Correctional to visit his colleague Petrova, the Harvard scientist from Russia. He said the buildings looked "like warehouses, featureless beige buildings" encircled with razor wire, separated from a low-income neighborhood by a patch of woods. During his visits, few of the people he spoke with in the nearby town of Monroe knew that more than 700 immigrant women were being held locally. According to ICE data, on average, in July, 97% of the women in Richwood Correctional had no criminal record. "If they are being held without charge," he asked, "why is there double-barbed wire? Why is it hidden in the forest?" Dinah Pulver contributed to this report.
Miami Herald
35 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
On Russia, Trump is just as foolish as Bush, Obama and Biden
Donald Trump gets a lot of guff from his opponents and a lot of love from his followers for being a different kind of politician than those who came before. And he sure is. But in at least one way, Trump is standard-issue. On Russia, Trump is amazingly conventional, following in the well-worn path of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, all three presidents who came before his second term. Like his predecessors, Trump entered office wanting to give Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. It really is amazing given the timeline of Russian aggression under Putin's leadership, which began in 1999. George W. Bush When Bush first met Putin at a summit in Slovenia, he looked into the dictator's soul and found something good there. 'I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy,' Bush said, '… I was able to get a sense of his soul.' Bush had hopes of reforming the former Soviet state and bringing it into closer alignment with the West. Putin had other ideas, continuing a brutal war to suppress the independence movement in Chechnya and later invading Georgia in 2008 on the trumped up concerns that Russians in two Eastern provinces of the former Soviet republic wanted to break away. Barack Obama The next year, Obama came into office with top foreign policy hand Hillary Clinton at his side. The Democratic duo thought the problem with U.S.-Russia relations was the Republican they replaced, so they sought the famous 'reset' of relations. That was rewarded with the first invasion of Ukraine that included the capture of Crimea. Joe Biden When the most experienced president in 50 years, Biden, tottered into the White House in 2021, he was not foolish enough to say anything about a reset. He did think he could change the tenor of the relationship, 'cooling off' the confrontation in his aides' words. That was rewarded with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Donald Trump Undeterred by the obvious pattern, Trump returned to office with plans to reach a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia within a day. That didn't happen. Russia instead escalated its bombing of Ukrainian cities to new heights. Now nearly six months into the new administration, Trump is frustrated and threatening to increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine's defenders, a move his critics suggested long ago and that Republicans themselves had suggested during the Biden administration's long, slow escalation of such aid to Kiev. It is amazing to me that such an intellectually diverse group of men could each rationalize themselves into the same foolishness. Perhaps one possible cause is the nastiness of our politics, where each president starts to believe that the guy who came before him didn't just have political differences, but instead was both evil and incompetent. Each in turn believed that the benighted fool who came before just didn't have the skill or intention of getting policy right. It is also comforting as you come into the White House to pretend that the opponents we face overseas are rational and competent, unlike our domestic opponents. It is harder to promise quick and easy solutions if you recognize Russia's leader as implacably vile. Now that Trump is rethinking his naive but traditional policy of hoping for the best from Putin, Americans need to engage in some hope themselves. Last time Trump was in office, he reportedly told Putin that if Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States would be bombing Moscow in short order. That's not a wise policy, either, and it's not one Trump should follow if Putin redoubles his efforts to conquer Ukraine. Trump came into office promising to keep the United States out of foreign wars. Arming the Ukrainians so they can do the fighting is the best way to do that. Hopefully Trump, like at least some of his predecessors, has figured that out.
Miami Herald
35 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Elon Musk and the America Party: A real shot at a 3rd party or a way to manage Trump?
Editor's note: Welcome to Double Take, a regular conversation from opinion writers Melinda Henneberger and David Mastio tackling news with differing perspectives. DAVID: There are two ways to think about a national third party: as a vehicle to get people elected and as a way to change policy. If Elon Musk's plan for the America Party is to elect a president or even compete with Democrats and Republicans for control of the House or the Senate, I wish him luck. One thing is for sure, he's found a great way to spend a lot of money — a lot more than the $300 million he blew on the presidential candidate he now disavows. But if his idea is to turn a third party into policy regardless of electoral wins, then it is a smart move. Just look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ,who turned a ridiculous third party candidacy into his own mini-MAGA movement and control of America's health care apparatus as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, where he's reshaping federal health policy based on the fantasyland science of his Make America Healthy Again movement. For a bigger win, look back to Ross Perot, who was obliterated in the 1992 election, but whose deficit control ideas were adopted by both the Democrats and the Republicans, resulting in the first balanced budgets in decades. I can't read Musk's minds, but his tweets seem to indicate he wants to target a handful of Senate races and a bigger number of House races to build an independent caucus in Congress that will be the kingmaker at critical moments on legislation. That's folly for three reasons. First, recruiting the kind of candidates who can break through and win is really tough, when Republicans and Democrats can offer ambitious people easier routes to power. Second, to have influence in this way, he'd have to win actual elections. There's not much history of Libertarians or democratic socialists winning elections outside the two party system. Third, Trump will still have the veto, and spendthrifts among Democrats and Republicans alike could choose to work together to keep up their reckless ways without bowing to the America Party's green eyeshade accountants pointing at the deficit. MELINDA: Since we've discussed Mr. Musk before, you know that the kindest thing I can say is that I do not hold him, his dodgy DOGE or how he sees women, families, compassion or what we owe one another while we're here on this planet in very high regard. However, since we desperately need real alternatives to both of our major parties, I think this America Party he wants to fund is an idea worth trying. Now, Musk may well change his mind again — or as you said, minds, which although it might have been a typo is perfect. DAVID: Now I am going to have to be careful of my typos because if you mention them, then I can't correct them later. MELINDA: We all make 'em. Though my kids delighted in calling me 'grammar freaky,' I also make that kind of mistake. Anyway, as I was saying, Musk's America Party would presumably mostly pull from Republicans. But it's too bad there's no center-left Musk willing to do this as well, for the good of the country, and please don't mention No Labels. DAVID: No Labels has been amusingly hapless. It is like they are trying to create a third option without upsetting anyone in the Democratic or Republican parties. I too wish, someone would shake up the Democratic Party, too. MELINDA: They did not amuse me, but relieved a lot of well-intentioned people of their cash to pay #MeToo offender Mark Halperin a huge salary as a consultant, which did not signal values for any third, fourth or fifth way I wanted any part of. Yes, quaint me, but as The New York Times would say, this was emblematic of what they were selling, which was the same old thing, which can't ever be an exciting new thing. Democrats are in trouble even with their own tribe; while only 4 in 10 Americans say they approve of the job Trump is doing, that's a stadium wave of enthusiasm compared to the 27% approval rating for congressional Democrats, mostly because Ds themselves have had it with their team's meek approach. While 73% of Republicans are A-OK with Congressional Rs doing whatever Trump says that day, even if that changes so often that Trump himself doesn't always seem to know what that is, just 44% of Democrats are satisfied with the job their representatives are doing. With some exceptions, I agree with this harsh assessment, and do have one suggestion: Chuck Schumer, what if you just stopped talking? Back to Musk, he is not trying to elect a president; he did that already, and did it make him happy? He walked away richer and more powerful but if anything, all the more furious. He says his goal is to 'laser-focus on just two or three Senate seats and eight to 10 House districts.' If what he's really after is to elect a bunch of deficit hawks, I don't see that going anywhere with the public, especially once they see what a bite the Big Nasty Cuts will put on them, so among other things we could spend $45 billion on filling a bunch of Alligator Alcatraz prisons with non-criminals. I know Musk will never soften that focus, but if he widened it, I see what he's setting out to do as difficult, but not impossible. DAVID: If Musk had some political smarts, which he may or may not, he'd build his party not around stricter accounting— he'd build it around his brand, which is the future. Think Mars and artificial intelligence and electric cars. Perot was on the right track, but he thought too small. Deficits and debt are a burden to the young — our future — but there is much more than that. Social Security and Medicare are giant subsidies for the past at the expense of the future. So are ag subsidies and steel tariffs and high-speed train dreams. MELINDA: Oh, Mama. Social Security and Medicare are not subsidies for the past but benefits we've earned over the course of our working lives. And I think we agree that we're going to need to start over on public health once RFK Jr. is done. DAVID: Spoken like you're FDR himself. Look at it another way: Why do we invest in the technologies from literally Before Christ (agriculture and steel) and 1804 when the train locomotive was invented? Most of the federal budget is invested in the past. Second most is spending on the present (defense and public health). As a percentage of the federal budget, very little is spent on the future (space and research and education). A party focused on that could start some conversations that are badly needed and draw supporters from both political parties, as well as those who are so profoundly uninspired by our present politics, which seems to be more focused on handing out the booty from political victories than taking our country to any particular place. MELINDA: FDR was derided by my family, so I know all of the 1930s jokes about him. As you probably know, there were serious concerns, valid ones, about his health as early as his second term, so maybe when Congress finishes booting Joe Biden and his loved ones around, they can look into that scandal, because what did Roosevelt's ailing, nonambulatory self ever accomplish, even on the brink of death? Oh, right. In this century, in any case, we need several new parties, and if Musk wants to begin the splintering, which is definitely his best event, then he should by all means go right ahead. Should he succeed, then his faction would wield a lot of power in an evenly divided country and Congress. And so, would be able to provide a real check on his former whatever he was, Donald Trump, someone Musk already thought he'd bought and paid for once. Yeah, I think that's the goal.
