Latest news with #civilrights
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Liberal supreme court justices' dissents reveal concerns that the US faces a crisis
On Friday the conservative-dominated US supreme court handed down a series of important judgments on issues ranging from the power of the judiciary to religious rights in schools. Media attention generally focused on the wording of the rulings and their impact. But the court's liberal minority of just three justices penned dissenting opinions that were similarly potent, revealing the sharp divisions on America's top legal body and also showed their deep concern at the declining health of American civic society and the authoritarian bent of the Trump presidency. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered an acidic sermon against the court's 6-3 decision to end lower courts' practice of issuing nationwide injunctions to block federal executive orders, reading her dissent directly from the bench in a move meant to highlight its importance. The decision is seen as limiting the power of judges to halt or slow presidential orders, even those whose constitutionality has not yet been tested, such as Trump's attempt to remove the right to automatic US citizenship for anyone born inside US borders. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' states Sotomayor's dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson. 'Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.' As opinion season ends in the first months of Donald Trump's second presidency, the court's decisions have expanded the power of the presidency and limited the power of lower courts to block Trump's agenda. The opinion in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Casa Inc, in which the court was silent on the underlying question about the constitutionality of Trump's executive order, nonetheless undermines the rule of law, Sotomayor said. Even though defending the order's legality is 'an impossible task' given the plain language of the 14th amendment, the court's opinion means each person must challenge the order individually in states that are not a party to the suit, unless class-action status is granted. In a concurring dissent, Jackson explained the burden it places on people to defend their rights in court. 'Today's ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,' Jackson's dissent states. 'This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law.' Jackson added ominously, the ruling was an 'existential threat to the rule of law'. Reading from the bench has historically been an uncommon act meant to emphasize profound disapproval of a justice to a ruling. The court's liberal wing has made it less rare lately, inveighing against profound legal changes wrought by the court's six-judge conservative bloc. Other decisions handed down on Friday also permit parents to opt their children out of classroom activities that depict LGBTQ+ characters in books (Mahmood v Taylor), and allow states to require age verification on pornographic web sites (Free Speech Coalition Inc, v Paxton), both decided on ideological lines. Age verification has already begun to drive porn website operators out of Texas, given a cost estimated at $40,000 for every 100,000 verifications, Kagan noted in her acerbic dissent. The Texas law creates a barrier between adults and first amendment-protected content that previous supreme court decisions on speech would not have permitted, she noted. Providing ID online is fundamentally different than flashing a driver's license at a bar. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion 'It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits – respecting speech many find repulsive – to a website operator, and then to … who knows?' she wrote. 'The operator might sell the information; the operator might be hacked or subpoenaed.' The ruling granting a religious exemption will have a chilling effect on schools, which may strip classroom material of any reference to LGBTQ+ content rather than risk costly litigation, Sotomayor wrote in dissent. Her dissent highlights the deliberate work done by the Montgomery county school board to create an inclusive curriculum, adding 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding' to its library in 2022. The children's book, one of five with LGBTQ+ characters, describes a same-sex couple's wedding announcement and plans. 'Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,' she wrote. 'The Court's ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards.' In three of the five decisions handed down on Friday, that conservative bloc had the majority. But in two cases the conservative bloc split: Kennedy v Braidwood Management, which reversed lower court rulings that declared an appointed board overseeing preventive care under the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, and FCC v Consumers' Research, which upheld the constitutionality of fees collected for a rural broadband program. Each of these cases split conservatives between those who support more expansive executive power – Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett – and others at war with the administrative state: Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas. But collectively, conservatives on the court have continued to upend longstanding precedent, while weakening the legal avenues of challengers to use the courts to defend their rights, the court's remaining liberal justices lament. 'The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other. It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival,' Sotomayor wrote in dissent on the birthright citizenship case. 'Today, the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort.'
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
What Does Supreme Court Ruling on Birthright Citizenship Mean?
President Donald Trump is fighting to end automatic citizenship for children born to parents who are in the country unlawfully or on temporary visas, part of his broader crackdown on undocumented immigrants and a change that could overturn more than a century of legal precedent. Trump took aim at birthright citizenship with an executive order hours after his January swearing-in, triggering lawsuits by civil rights groups and Democrat-led states. They argued Trump couldn't unilaterally alter birthright citizenship because it's enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Liberal supreme court justices' dissents reveal concerns that the US faces a crisis
On Friday the conservative-dominated US supreme court handed down a series of important judgements on issues ranging from the power of the judiciary to religious rights in schools. Media attention generally focused on the wording of the rulings and their impact. But the court's liberal minority of just three justices penned dissenting opinions that were similarly potent, revealing the sharp divisions on America's top legal body and also showed their deep concern at the declining health of American civic society and the authoritarian bent of the Trump presidency. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered an acidic sermon against the court's 6-3 decision to end lower courts' practice of issuing nationwide injunctions to block federal executive orders, reading her dissent directly from the bench in a move meant to highlight its importance. The decision is seen as limiting the power of judges to halt or slow presidential orders, even those whose constitutionality has not yet been tested, such as Trump's attempt to remove the right of automatic US citizenship to anyone born inside US borders. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' states Sotomayor's dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson. 'Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.' As opinion season ends in the first months of Donald Trump's second presidency, the high court's decisions have expanded the power of the presidency and limited the power of lower courts to block Trump's agenda. The opinion in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Casa Inc, in which the court was silent on the underlying question about the constitutionality of Trump's executive order, nonetheless undermines the rule of law, Sotomayor said. Even though defending the order's legality is 'an impossible task' given the plain language of the 14th amendment, the court's opinion means each person must challenge the order individually in states that are not a party to the suit, unless class action status is granted. In a concurring dissent, Jackson explained the burden it places on people to defend their rights in court. 'Today's ruling allows the Executive to deny people rights that the Founders plainly wrote into our Constitution, so long as those individuals have not found a lawyer or asked a court in a particular manner to have their rights protected,' Jackson's dissent states. 'This perverse burden shifting cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Court has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive action is challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law.' Jackson added ominously, the ruling was an 'existential threat to the rule of law'. Reading from the bench has historically been an uncommon act meant to emphasize profound disapproval of a justice to a ruling. The court's liberal wing has made it less rare lately, inveighing against profound legal changes wrought by the court's six-judge conservative bloc. Other decisions handed down today also permit parents to opt their children out of classroom activities that depict LGBTQ+ characters in books (Mahmood v Taylor), and allow states to require age verification on pornographic web sites (Free Speech Coalition Inc, v Paxton), both decided on ideological lines. Age verification has already begun to drive porn website operators out of Texas, given a cost estimated at $40,000 for every 100,000 verifications, Kagan noted in her acerbic dissent. The Texas law creates a barrier between adults and first amendment-protected content that previous Supreme Court decisions on speech would not have permitted, she noted. Providing ID online is fundamentally different than flashing a driver's license at a bar. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion 'It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits – respecting speech many find repulsive – to a website operator, and then to … who knows?' she wrote. 'The operator might sell the information; the operator might be hacked or subpoenaed.' The ruling granting a religious exemption will have a chilling effect on schools, which may strip classroom material of any reference to LGBTQ+ content rather than risk costly litigation, Sotomayor wrote in dissent. Her dissent highlights the deliberate work done by the Montgomery County School Board to create an inclusive curriculum, adding 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding' to its library in 2022. The children's book, one of five with LGBTQ characters, describes a same-sex couple's wedding announcement and plans. 'Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,' she wrote. 'The Court's ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards.' In three of the five decisions handed down today, that conservative bloc had the majority. But in two cases the conservative bloc split: Kennedy v Braidwood Management, which reversed lower court rulings that declared an appointed board overseeing preventative care under the Affordable Care Act as an unconstitutional, and FCC v Consumers' Research, which upheld the constitutionality of fees collected for a rural broadband program. Each of these cases split conservatives between those who support more expansive executive power – Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett – and others at war with the administrative state: Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas. But collectively, conservatives on the court have continued to upend longstanding precedent, while weakening the legal avenues of challengers to use the courts to defend their rights, the court's remaining liberal justices lament. 'The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other. It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival,' Sotomayor wrote in dissent on the birthright citizenship case. 'Today, the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort.'
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sotomayor Warns No One Is Safe After Birthright Citizenship Ruling
In dissenting opinions, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson excoriated the Supreme Court's Friday ruling on birthright citizenship, which restricts courts' ability to keep the Trump White House from carrying out its lawless orders. At issue was whether lower courts can issue 'nationwide injunctions' halting Trump's anti–birthright citizenship order from being enforced against anyone, and not just those challenging the order in court or living in a jurisdiction where it's being challenged. While not acknowledging the constitutionality of the executive order, which denies automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants and those with temporary status, the majority opinion stated that such injunctions 'likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.' Justice Sotomayor had choice words for this ruling, which seemingly provides Trump powerful ammunition in his attacks on civil liberties. She was joined by Justices Elena Kagan as well as Jackson, who also wrote a dissenting opinion. 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates,' Sotomayor's dissent read. '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.' Sotomayor used an analogy to illustrate the absurdity of granting the government's request to strike down nationwide freezes on plainly unlawful orders: 'Suppose an executive order barred women from receiving unemployment benefits or black citizens from voting. Is the Government irreparably harmed, and entitled to emergency relief, by a district court order universally enjoining such policies? The majority, apparently, would say yes.' Sotomayor torched her conservative colleagues for caving to Trump: 'With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a 'solemn mockery' of our Constitution,' she wrote. 'Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.' Jackson began her dissent by noting she agrees 'with every word of Justice Sotomayor's dissent,' and decided to file hers to emphasize that the court's ruling poses 'an existential threat to the rule of law.' Trump's request to do away with universal injunctions, Jackson wrote, 'is, at bottom, a request for this Court's permission to engage in unlawful behavior' and 'to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution.' In granting that wish, Jackson wrote, the majority has permitted Trump to act not unlike a monarch, giving 'the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate.' By placing 'the onus on the victims to invoke the law's protection,' the court has created circumstances in which 'a Martian arriving here from another planet would … surely wonder: 'what good is the Constitution, then?'' The court's decision marks 'a sad day for America,' Jackson said, requiring judges, faced with Trump's lawlessness, 'to look the other way' and permit 'unlawful conduct to continue unabated.' 'Perhaps the degradation of our rule-of-law regime would happen anyway,' she wrote. 'But this Court's complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law (as they interpret it) will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state'
Some wear balaclavas. Some wear neck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes. Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics. It's a trend that has sparked alarm among civil rights and law enforcement experts alike. Mike German, a former FBI agent, said officers' widespread use of masks was unprecedented in US law enforcement and a sign of a rapidly eroding democracy. 'Masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls,' he said. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has insisted masks are necessary to protect officers' privacy, arguing, without providing evidence, that there has been an uptick in violence against agents. But, German argued, the longterm consequences could be severe. The practice could erode trust in the US law enforcement agencies: 'When it's hard to tell who a masked individual is working for, it's hard to accept that that is a legitimate use of authority,' he noted. And, he said, when real agents use masks more frequently, it becomes easier for imposters to operate. German – who previously worked undercover in white supremacist and militia groups and is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-profit – spoke to the Guardian about the dangers of officer masking, why he thinks officers are concealing themselves and how far the US has deviated from democratic norms. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Were you surprised by the frequent reports of federal officers covering their faces and refusing to identify themselves, especially during the recent immigration raids and protests in Los Angeles? It is absolutely shocking and frightening to see masked agents, who are also poorly identified in the way they are dressed, using force in public without clearly identifying themselves. Our country is known for having democratic control over law enforcement. When it's hard to tell who a masked individual is working for, it's hard to accept that that is a legitimate use of authority. It's particularly important for officers to identify themselves when they are making arrests. It's important for the person being arrested, and for community members who might be watching, that they understand this is a law enforcement activity. Is there any precedent in the US for this kind of widespread law enforcement masking? I'm not aware of any period where US law enforcement officials wore masks, other than the lone ranger, of course. Masking has always been associated with police states. I think the masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls. We see this during protests. We see this in Ice raids. And we see this in the excessive secrecy in which law enforcement has increasingly operated since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. How does masking fit into the post-9/11 trends in American policing? After 9/11, there were significant changes to the law – the Patriot Act, expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, changes to FBI guidelines – that allowed mass warrantless surveillance. Those changes rolled back reforms that had been put in place to address law enforcement abuses, including the targeting of disfavored political activists. As the federal government greatly expanded its authority, state and local law enforcement adopted a similar approach they called 'intelligence-led policing'. That included the creation of 'fusion centers', in which state, local and federal law enforcement share information with each other and private sector entities. Roughly 80 fusion centers exist today, and there is very little oversight and regulation, and they operate under a thick cloak of secrecy, often targeting disfavored protest groups. Once police think of themselves as domestic intelligence agents rather than law enforcement sworn to protect the public, it creates this attitude that the public doesn't have a right to know what they're doing. And now that includes even hiding their identities in public. Why do you think some officers are masking? I have not had conversations with current officers, but I imagine some are masking because they don't normally work for Ice or do immigration enforcement, but are now being sent to do these jobs. [The Trump administration has diverted some federal officers from agencies like the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to support Ice, reportedly pushing agents who would be tackling violent crimes to instead handle civil immigration violations]. When these officers go home at night, they may not want people in their communities to know it was them. Maybe they have upstanding reputations because of the work they do for the FBI or ATF, and they don't necessarily want to be identified with this kind of indiscriminate targeting of immigrants. And that reluctance to be identified as engaging in those activities really highlights the illegitimacy of those actions. Are there concerns about having masked officers from other agencies working for Ice? Officers from other federal law enforcement agencies are used to operating within specific authorities, and they may not recognize that Ice enforcement actions don't necessarily allow for those same actions. When an FBI or ATF agent is seeking to arrest someone, they typically have a warrant signed by a judge and can go after that person even on private property. Ice's civil enforcement powers don't give them that authority. If Ice doesn't have a judicial warrant, they can't go into someone's home. So if the FBI is doing Ice enforcement, they have to understand their authority is limited in important ways in order to not violate the law. That's also why it's critical for agents to identify what agency they are with. Otherwise, it's hard to understand under what authority an action is being taken. Who is this person shoving a member of the public who is just asking questions? Historically, what are the basic standards and training for law enforcement showing their faces? I'm not aware of any general authority authorizing an agent not to identify themselves during public law enforcement activity. As a former FBI undercover agent, I tried to avoid getting my picture taken as much as possible. But it is a small number of individuals who engage in undercover operations who would require any kind of masking, and they have the option of not participating in arrests where they are going to be in public. A lot of training is about police safety. And part of that safety is having a clear indication that you are a law enforcement official when you're engaging in some type of activity that could involve use of force or arrest, including protest management. The badge was intended to protect the officer, to make it clear you're acting under the authority of the law and not just shoving somebody you don't like. As an FBI agent, if I was going to talk to a member of the public, I'd identify myself and display my credentials. It was routine. And anytime I would write up the interview for evidentiary purposes, the first thing I'd write was, I identified myself and let them know the purpose of the interview. Do you think lawmakers can address this issue with legislation? Some Democratic US senators have pushed Ice to require that agents identify themselves, and California lawmakers have introduced state legislation to ban law enforcement from masking on duty, arguing public servants have an obligation to show their faces – and not operate like Star Wars stormtroopers. Having clear laws, regulations and policies that require law enforcement to operate in an accountable fashion is critical. But a lot of this is about leadership. Law enforcement leaders are justifying masking as some dubious security measure instead of ensuring officers act in a professional manner at all times and holding them accountable when they don't. That has been a significant problem over time when police engage in illegal or unconstitutional activity. It's great when federal, state or local legislators pass laws requiring accountability, but those measures cannot be successful if police aren't expected by their own leaders to abide by those rules. What are the ongoing consequences of officers hiding their faces? The recent shootings of two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, by a suspect who allegedly impersonated an officer, highlights the danger of police not looking like police. Federal agents wearing masks and casual clothing significantly increases this risk of any citizen dressing up in a way that fools the public into believing they are law enforcement so they can engage in illegal activity. It is a public safety threat, and it's also a threat to the agents and officers themselves, because people will not immediately be able to distinguish between who is engaged in legitimate activity or illegitimate activity when violence is occurring in public. What are people supposed to do when they're not sure if an officer is legitimate? That question highlights the box that these tactics put Americans into. When they are not sure, the inclination is to resist, and that resistance is used to justify a greater use of force by the officers, and it creates this cycle that is harmful to people just trying to mind their business. And that can mean that these individuals are not just subject to use of force and very aggressive arrests on civil charges, but they could also face more serious criminal charges. The more illegitimate police act, the more resistance to their activities will result. And if the public doesn't trust officers, it becomes very difficult for them to do their jobs.
