US appeals court allows Trump administration to remove deportation protections for Afghans, Cameroonians
The Trump administration moved in April to end TPS for Afghans and Cameroonians in the U.S., saying conditions in Afghanistan and Cameroon no longer merited the protected status. The move affected an estimated 14,600 Afghans and 7,900 Cameroonians.
Immigration advocacy organization CASA filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted an administrative stay on the termination until July 21.
In Monday's ruling, the appeals panel agreed with a lower court that CASA has stated "a plausible claim for relief with regard to the alleged 'preordained'" decision to terminate TPS.
"At this procedural posture, however, there is insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement of agency action pending appeal," the panel wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TPS program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's Obama ‘Russia-gate' push offers the MAGA Epstein crowd a head on a plate. Here's why he can't deliver on that promise
But she, like the president himself, is likely to see her efforts end in the same murky water where the dreams of prosecuting Hillary Clinton died during Trump's first term in office. On Wednesday, the White House trotted out the Director of National Intelligence, alongside press secretary Karoline Leavitt, to brief reporters on an intel review that Gabbard had led. She told reporters that new evidence pointed to the involvement of former president Barack Obama and top officials in a supposed campaign to alter the conclusions of intelligence assessments, in order to forge a link between Trump and Russia where none supposedly existed. It was an old theory with a new twist, which Gabbard laid out as an apparent years-long 'coup' attempt against Trump. She argued that Obama, along with former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, and former FBI chief James Comey, knowingly changed official intelligence assessments to explain the scope of the nefarious activity Russia was up to in 2016. 'The implications of this are far reaching and have to do with the integrity of our democratic republic,' Gabbard claimed. 'It has to do with an outgoing President taking action to manufacture intelligence, to undermine and usurp the will of the American people in that election and launch what would be a years long coup against the incoming president United States, Donald Trump.' It's here where Donald Trump and the White House's call for 'justice' and 'accountability' (two words Leavitt and Gabbard floated Wednesday) runs out of gas. The White House directed the appointment of a special counsel to look at the origins of the Russia investigation in 2019, the probe, led by John Durham, found no evidence of criminal activity committed by Obama or other members of his administration. And given how the federal statute of limitations works, the clock is ticking for Trumpworld to take a second crack at delivering the retribution the president has long threatened to levy against his enemies. Under federal law, most criminal charges have a statute of limitation of five years, meaning that the entirety of the 'Russiagate' probe's duration now falls outside of the legal window for criminal prosecution. To be clear, this obviously does not apply to all crimes. It doesn't apply to murder, or sexual abuse. It also doesn't apply to treason, which Trumpworld has long (and unseriously) suggested charging Obama and others with. Trump again made that specific accusation in the wake of Gabbard's memo being published last week. Nor does it apply to another criminal count that could be leveled agains the former president and members of his team in a last-ditch attempt to make something stick: conspiracy against rights. That latter charge carries a statute of limitations of ten years, not five, and as a result it's by far the most likely avenue for federal prosecutors to take if a real effort is made to deliver on Trump's promised vengeance. The New York Post reported that some of Trump's allies view it as their best shot. But their opponents say even that would be a fool's errand. 'These bizarre claims against President Obama are a made up farrago of malicious nonsense. The context makes clear that this is an effort to distract from Trump's major Epstein problem,' Norm Eisen, a constitutional scholar and co-counsel for the first Trump impeachment effort in 2020, said in a statement to The Independent on Wednesday. Eisen continued: 'We at Democracy Defenders Fund have filed a legal demand under the freedom of information act for the Trump - Epstein documents and if we do not get them we will be litigating. But there is no basis for charging Obama with any crime irrespective of the statute of limitations, and plucking an offense out of thin air simply because it has a longer statute of limitations just highlights the baselessness of it all. ' At Wednesday's briefing Gabbard deflected questions on potential charges to Attorney General Pam Bondi, possibly the most embattled member of Trump's Cabinet thanks to the uproar over the DOJ's declaration that a list of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's clients did not exist. 'I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice. I am not an attorney,' said Gabbard. In reality, the DOJ has gone nearly a week since the publication of a memo outlining the ODNI's newest review, and the Justice Department hasn't uttered a peep in terms of plans to launch investigations following up on Gabbard's findings, despite the ODNI claimin that all evidence was referred to Bondi's office. A spokesperson for Obama, meanwhile, issued a rare statement on Tuesday calling the accusations 'bizarre' and correctly noting that 'nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but didn't successfully manipulate any votes.' This is true. The ODNI assessment released by Gabbard relied heavily on Gabbard's conflation of the finding that Russian actors did not launch cyberattacks against voting platforms with a finding that Russia had not interfered at all, the latter of which was not true. Like the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020, the Department of Justice and other agencies found that Russian actors worked to push influence campaigns on social media platforms aimed at sowing disinformation. On Wednesday, Gabbard and Leavitt presented that conclusion anew by inferring that Russia did interfere, but without the goal of helping either major candidate in the race. Conspiracy against rights would be an ironic charge for Trump's team to level against the former president. It's one of the same charges he himself was accused of after the 2020 election in a criminal probe launched by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed under the Biden administration. It would be a difficult one to get to stick to the former president, however, as it would require that Trump's prosecutors prove the existence of an organized plot between Obama and his advisers to keep Trump out of the White House — something even Gabbard didn't allege on Wednesday, as the ODNI probe did not turn up any evidence of a concerted scheme. The Biden White House tried for 4 years to launch successful criminal prosecutions aimed at holding Donald Trump accountable. His attempts to overturn the election and his handling of classified materials after leaving the presidency both triggered criminal charges; in both cases, the DOJ was too slow to bring the case to trial, and the charges were dismissed after Trump's 2024 election victory. Trump was charged with conspiracy against rights for allegedly conspiring to violate the rights of millions of Americans by working with state legislatures and Congress in a half-cocked bid to throw out the election results pointing to his defeat. It's the same charge down to the letter that Obama would now face from a Trumpified DOJ, were such an effort to be launched. Gabbard, on Wednesday, couldn't answer why those charges weren't pursued during Trump's first term. 'I can't speak to what happened there,' she said Wednesday. 'There were several [directors of national intelligence] under the first Trump administration. President Trump faced many challenges from those who were working in the government who sought to undermine his presidency.'
The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Most US adults still support legal abortion 3 years after Roe was overturned, an AP-NORC poll finds
Three years after the Supreme Court opened the door to state abortion bans, most U.S. adults continue to say abortion should be legal — views that look similar to before the landmark ruling. The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll show that about two-thirds of U.S. adults think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About half believe abortion should be available in their state if someone does not want to be pregnant for any reason. That level of support for abortion is down slightly from what an AP-NORC poll showed last year, when it seemed that support for legal abortion might be rising. The June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to state bans on abortion led to major policy changes. Most states have either moved to protect abortion access or restrict it. Twelve are now enforcing bans on abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and four more do so after about six weeks' gestation, which is often before women realize they're pregnant. In the aftermath of the ruling, AP-NORC polling suggested that support for legal abortion access might be increasing. Last year, an AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that 7 in 10 U.S. adults said it should be available in all or most cases, up slightly from 65% in May 2022, just before the decision that overruled the constitutional right to abortion, and 57% in June 2021. The new poll is closer to Americans' views before the Supreme Court ruled. Now, 64% of adults support legal abortion in most or all cases. More than half the adults in states with the most stringent bans are in that group. Similarly, about half now say abortion should be available in their state when someone doesn't want to continue their pregnancy for any reason — about the same as in June 2021 but down from about 6 in 10 who said that in 2024. Adults in the strictest states are just as likely as others to say abortion should be available in their state to women who want to end pregnancies for any reason. Democrats support abortion access far more than Republicans do. Support for legal abortion has dropped slightly among members of both parties since June 2024, but nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and roughly 4 in 10 Republicans say abortion should be legal in at least most instances. Fallout from state bans has influenced some people's positions — but not others Seeing what's happened in the aftermath of the ruling has strengthened the abortion rights position of Wilaysha White, a 25-year-old Ohio mom. She has some regrets about the abortion she had when she was homeless. 'I don't think you should be able to get an abortion anytime,' said White, who calls herself a 'semi-Republican.' But she said that hearing about situations — including when a Georgia woman was arrested after a miscarriage and initially charged with concealing a death — is a bigger concern. 'Seeing women being sick and life or death, they're not being put first — that's just scary,' she said. 'I'd rather have it be legal across the board than have that.' Julie Reynolds' strong anti-abortion stance has been cemented for decades and hasn't shifted since Roe was overturned. 'It's a moral issue,' said the 66-year-old Arizona woman, who works part time as a bank teller. She said her view is shaped partly by having obtained an abortion herself when she was in her 20s. 'I would not want a woman to go through that,' she said. 'I live with that every day. I took a life.' Support remains high for legal abortion in certain situations The vast majority of U.S. adults — at least 8 in 10 — continue to say their state should allow legal abortion if a fetal abnormality would prevent the child from surviving outside the womb, if the patient's health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy, or if the person became pregnant as a result of rape or incest. Consistent with AP-NORC's June 2024 poll, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults 'strongly' or 'somewhat' favor protecting access to abortions for patients who are experiencing miscarriages or other pregnancy-related emergencies. In states that have banned or restricted abortion, such medical exceptions have been sharply in focus. This is a major concern for Nicole Jones, a 32-year-old Florida resident. Jones and her husband would like to have children soon. But she said she's worried about access to abortion if there's a fetal abnormality or a condition that would threaten her life in pregnancy since they live in a state that bans most abortions after the first six weeks of gestation. 'What if we needed something?' she asked. 'We'd have to travel out of state or risk my life because of this ban.' Adults support protections for seeking abortions across state lines — but not as strongly There's less consensus on whether states that allow abortion should protect access for women who live in places with bans. Just over half support protecting a patient's right to obtain an abortion in another state and shielding those who provide abortions from fines or prison time. In both cases, relatively few adults — about 2 in 10 — oppose the measures and about 1 in 4 are neutral. More Americans also favor than oppose legal protections for doctors who prescribe and mail abortion pills to patients in states with bans. About 4 in 10 'somewhat' or 'strongly' favor those protections, and roughly 3 in 10 oppose them. Such telehealth prescriptions are a key reason that the number of abortions nationally has risen even as travel for abortion has declined slightly. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. ___
The Guardian
17 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Newsman or businessman? Murdoch walks tightrope in battle with Trump
Rupert Murdoch had made up his mind. 'We want to make Trump a nonperson,' he assured one of his former executives in a 2021 email, two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Over seven decades, Murdoch has sought to charm, challenge and change prime ministers and presidents as he built one of the world's most powerful media empires. In this particular endeavor, however, he failed. Donald Trump, far from being made a nonperson, became the first defeated US president in 132 years to win back the White House. And from the Club World Cup final to the Oval Office, Murdoch has been seen by his side. As the Wall Street Journal prepared to report that Trump provided a bawdy birthday letter to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein last week, the president appealed to Murdoch – chair emeritus of News Corporation, the newspaper's owner – to kill the story, claiming it was false. The story ran. But the story did not receive the same treatment across Murdoch's empire. The Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham went on air 15 minutes after the Journal published its story, and talked about Epstein. 'We have new news coming on about this, as well, from the Wall Street Journal. A new report tonight – next,' she said, throwing to a commercial break. When The Ingraham Angle returned, the new news did not feature. Preston Padden, who worked at Fox in the 1990s, is the veteran media industry operator whom Murdoch told of his plan to make Trump a 'nonperson' in 2021. He was not surprised to see how his former boss, and his array of outlets, handled this story. 'You've got the Wall Street Journal, and you've got the cable news channel. And they represent two different sides of Rupert's brain,' Padden said in an interview. 'He is, in his heart, a serious newsman, and that's the Wall Street Journal. He's also a brilliant businessman, and that's Fox News.' Murdoch's businesses are divided between two companies: Fox Corporation, which houses Fox News and the Tubi streaming platform, and News Corp, home to newspapers including the Australian, the Sun, the Journal; the digital real estate network REA; and HarperCollins, the publishing giant. 'There is a more of a focus on the business than the journalism at Fox, than seems to be the case at News Corp,' said Brian Wieser, an analyst and former banker. 'It always appeared to me that business was first' for Murdoch, he added. 'Influence was a means to an end.' News Corp's Dow Jones division – where the Wall Street Journal sits – generated revenue of $575m in the first three months of the year. Fox Corp's cable network programming arm, meanwhile – led by Fox News, and also including Fox Sports – generated $1.64bn over the same period. 'Fox News is the primordial asset of the collection of assets,' said media analyst Claire Enders, who said the network 'has drawn no attention to the matter, exactly as the president has wished'. Covering the Journal's reporting on Trump and Epstein 'would not be good for business' at Fox News, suggested Padden, who observed how the network previously endured a backlash from the president's supporters when it strayed significantly from his narrative. 'And so you can watch this debate,' he claimed. 'Should we report the truth, and lose viewers, or should we report what our viewers want?' In 2023, Fox reached a $787.5m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the voting equipment firm's defamation lawsuit against the network over the false narrative that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump. Trump, who has in recent days promoted Fox News segments on his Truth Social platform, seems perfectly happy with its output. But he promptly sued Murdoch, News Corp and the Journal reporters behind the story on his ties with Epstein, publicly goading Murdoch about the threat of testifying. Murdoch and Trump have engaged in a transactional relationship spanning decades, noted Enders. 'There is also a very longstanding friendship between Trump and Mr Murdoch. And a symbiotic relationship with the cashflow machine,' she said. 'They have fallen out before and made up quickly.' In December, Disney's ABC agreed to pay $15m to a foundation and museum as part of a settlement in a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. Earlier this month, Paramount reached a $16m settlement with the president over another lawsuit he filed over an interview with Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate for president, by CBS News. Trump's latest lawsuit raises the prospect of another prominent media organization – this time News Corp – potentially settling to avoid a lengthy legal battle. A Dow Jones spokesperson said: 'We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.' 'We do not anticipate any lasting repercussions from this unless the WSJ has in fact been hoaxed,' said Enders. 'Otherwise, it will be shuffled away with a smaller settlement. That is how previous ginormous Trump lèse-majesté cases have been dealt with.' Fox News has covered the lawsuit sparingly in recent days, reporting on Trump's initial filing on Friday, referencing the story briefly on Saturday, and then analyzing it in a segment on Sunday. The network declined to comment. Murdoch, 94, retired from management in 2023, when he handed over the reins at Fox Corp and News Corp to his son, Lachlan. At the time, however, he stressed he would remain 'involved every day' in the businesses. 'As long as he's around, it's his candy store,' said Padden.
