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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Court halts controversial Oklahoma immigration law that would create new state charge
Oklahoma can't enforce a controversial state immigration law while a related lawsuit works its way through court, a federal judge in Oklahoma City has ruled. U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones issued the injunction Tuesday, June 3, weeks after he had issued a similar, but shorter-term, order in the case. The lawsuit centers on a 2024 law known as House Bill 4156, which would let state courts prosecute people for the crime of "impermissible occupation." Civil rights groups want the court to throw out the law as unconstitutional. They contend the federal government has the exclusive right to regulate immigration. Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond has countered that Oklahoma should be allowed to enforce the law. Jones said in his ruling that while Oklahoma officials may have understandable concerns about the impacts of undocumented immigration, the federal government has the sole right to control immigration law. "In the end, that is why H.B. 4156 must fail — not to excuse unlawful presence or shield criminal conduct, but because it is what the Constitution demands," Jones wrote. Jones was nominated to the bench in 2019 by Republican President Donald Trump during his first term in office. Trump has made clamping down on illegal immigration a key focus of his second term. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. sued Oklahoma in 2024 in an attempt to block HB 4156 from taking effect. But federal prosecutors dropped out of the case after Trump took office. The government's exit put the case in legal limbo. In May, several plaintiffs, including the ACLU, revived the legal challenge to the law and asked a judge to put it on hold until the lawsuit worked its way through court. Jones granted that request, writing that he was unconvinced by arguments that Oklahoma has any power to enforce state-level immigration laws. "The federal government retains, as it always has, 'broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens,'" Jones wrote, citing a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. "And noncitizens who violate federal immigration law—whether in Oklahoma or elsewhere—remain subject to that authority, if and when the federal government chooses to act." Noor Zafar, an attorney for the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said the groups suing to block the law were grateful for Jones' decision to put the law on hold. 'Every single day that HB 4156 is in effect, it puts immigrants in Oklahoma at tremendous risk,' Zafar said in a statement. Drummond, who has been a vocal supporter of the law, did not immediately respond to a request sent to a spokesperson for comment on the injunction. He had previously accused the court of 'protecting admitted lawbreakers from federal and state consequences' after Jones issued a temporary restraining order in the case. Oklahoma's HB 4156: What to know about state's paused immigration law, Trump policies Drummond's office also had asked Jones to block two plaintiffs from suing under the fictitious names of Barbara Boe and Christopher Coe, rather than their legal names. Court filings described Boe as a 51-year-old Mexican national who lives in Tulsa and Coe as a 37-year-old Mexican national who lives in Broken Bow. They had argued that using their real names would open them up to law enforcement scrutiny. Jones agreed, saying it would "effectively place a target on their backs simply for seeking judicial review" of a state law that they claim is unconstitutional. He pushed back against the state's argument that allowing Boe and Coe to use pseudonyms would protect "federal lawbreakers from the federal consequences of their actions." He described that argument as a mischaracterization that did not "move the needle." "After all, this case concerns a state immigration law, and the federal government stands in no better — or worse position to prosecute or remove plaintiffs for federal immigration violations by virtue of their pseudonymity," Jones wrote. If HB 4156 is ultimately allowed to go into effect, the law would establish the misdemeanor crime of "impermissible occupation," with punishment being up to one year in a county jail, a $500 fine or both. Any subsequent convictions would trigger felony charges and the possibility of spending two years in state prison or paying a $1,000 fine. People convicted of impermissible occupation would be forced to leave Oklahoma within 72 hours of being released. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma's controversial anti-immigration law HB 4156 halted again
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court immigration ruling: Due process in theory, deportation in practice
The Supreme Court's ruling allowing the Trump administration to continue deporting immigrants under an 18th century wartime law was hailed as a victory by both the federal government and those challenging the deportations. The high court left many questions about the law unanswered, experts said, which explains, in part, the contradictory reactions to Monday night's ruling. The divided court agreed the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of a foreign gang, as long as they are given the right to challenge the government's claim. Read more: Supreme Court upholds Trump's war power to deport Venezuelan gang members 'The critical point of this ruling is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,' Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, who is leading the lawsuit, wrote in a statement. "That is an important victory." President Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, focused on the other key part of the court's ruling: "The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!" The ruling upends the orders of district court and appellate judges who had paused the deportations and said the administration had overstepped its power. The court did not decide a larger issue: whether the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act is constitutional. The families of many people deported under the law said they are not gang members. More than 100 men accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Though the court held that detainees have the right to challenge their removal, immigrant advocates said this comes with a catch: People held for deportation will have to file individual petitions in the district where they are detained, a difficult process for someone arrested in, say, California but held in Texas, far from family and lawyers. Immigration officials sent many detainees to Texas before their deportation to El Salvador. On Tuesday, the ACLU and other plaintiffs filed an emergency lawsuit in New York federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court's jurisdiction. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and three other Democratic members of the Senate and House judiciary committees issued a statement Tuesday saying the Supreme Court ruling will "will unquestionably harm people caught up in this oppressive nightmare." 'Although the Court unanimously agreed that deportations without due process are illegal, the reality is the Trump Administration has been rapidly and erroneously deporting people, and has taken the position that those erroneously deported may be confined to foreign prisons with no redress," the legislators wrote. "The Court's requirement that challenges occur through individual habeas petitions will make it very difficult for people to successfully challenge their removals before they happen." The Alien Enemies Act was last used during World War II and, according to an overview from the National Archives, was employed to detain more than 31,000 people from Japan, Germany and Italy. Three times as many people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens, were held at incarceration camps. Read more: Trump says he'll undertake the 'largest deportation' in U.S. history. Can he do that? Experts including Tom Jawetz, a former senior attorney at the Homeland Security Department under the Biden administration, are skeptical that immigrants targeted under the wartime law will actually be given enough time to find lawyers and challenge their deportations. "While the court did provide sort of a mixed win, I think there is very good reason to be concerned that the process afforded to these individuals is going to be lacking," he said. "With an administration that shoots first and really doesn't ask questions ever, I think we're going to see a lot more mistakes taking place through these kinds of removals." Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder and chief executive of the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center, represents a gay makeup artist who was seeking asylum when the Trump administration deported him to the Salvadoran prison. Officials cited his crown tattoos as evidence of him being a member of Tren de Aragua. Toczylowski said the due process review required by the Supreme Court will be a disaster in practice. "Most people forcibly sent to El Salvador were unrepresented," she wrote on X. Referring to their detention in Texas, she added, "Trump purposefully moved them to remote detention centers in TX pre-rendition." Once these cases begin weaving their way through the court system and one makes it to the Supreme Court, the public will pretty quickly see what the court really thinks about use of the wartime law, said Gabriel "Jack" Chin, a professor who studies the intersection of criminal and immigration law at UC Berkeley. "I'm not worried yet," he said. Jawetz said many questions remain to be answered by the Supreme Court, among them: What happens to those already deported under the Alien Enemies Act? Can this wartime authority be invoked during a time of peace and against a nongovernmental entity? With the deportation pause lifted, those questions could now work their way through the court system in a much more rushed and chaotic fashion, Jawetz said. In a separate decision Monday, the Supreme Court paused a lower court's order requiring the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who Trump administration lawyers admitted was wrongly deported to the El Salvador prison. Read more: Supreme Court pauses wrongful deportation case at behest of Trump lawyers Such court-ordered returns are somewhat rare but have taken place. The administration has said it has no way to bring back the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was not deported under the Alien Enemies Act. If the justices decide that the Trump administration cannot be required to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., "there's very limited hope that the courts will step in and say any of these folks who have been sent to rot in the Salvadoran prison have a chance of getting their day in court," Jawetz said. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Supreme Court immigration ruling: Due process in theory, deportation in practice
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's ruling allowing the Trump administration to continue deporting immigrants under an 18th century wartime law was hailed as a victory by both the federal government and those challenging the deportations. The high court left many questions about the law unanswered, experts said, which explains, in part, the contradictory reactions to Monday night's ruling. The divided court agreed the Trump administration can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of a foreign gang, as long as they are given the right to challenge the government's claim. 'The critical point of this ruling is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,' Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, who is leading the lawsuit, wrote in a statement. 'That is an important victory.' President Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, focused on the other key part of the court's ruling: 'The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!' The ruling upends the orders of district court and appellate judges who had paused the deportations and said the administration had overstepped its power. The court did not decide a larger issue: whether the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act is constitutional. The families of many people deported under the law said they are not gang members. More than 100 men accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Though the court held that detainees have the right to challenge their removal, immigrant advocates said this comes with a catch: People held for deportation will have to file individual petitions in the district where they are detained, a difficult process for someone arrested in, say, California but held in Texas, far from family and lawyers. Immigration officials sent many detainees to Texas before their deportation to El Salvador. On Tuesday, the ACLU and other plaintiffs filed an emergency lawsuit in New York federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court's jurisdiction. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and three other Democratic members of the Senate and House judiciary committees issued a statement Tuesday saying the Supreme Court ruling will 'will unquestionably harm people caught up in this oppressive nightmare.' 'Although the Court unanimously agreed that deportations without due process are illegal, the reality is the Trump Administration has been rapidly and erroneously deporting people, and has taken the position that those erroneously deported may be confined to foreign prisons with no redress,' the legislators wrote. 'The Court's requirement that challenges occur through individual habeas petitions will make it very difficult for people to successfully challenge their removals before they happen.' The Alien Enemies Act was last used during World War II and, according to an overview from the National Archives, was employed to detain more than 31,000 people from Japan, Germany and Italy. Three times as many people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens, were held at incarceration camps. Experts including Tom Jawetz, a former senior attorney at the Homeland Security Department under the Biden administration, are skeptical that immigrants targeted under the wartime law will actually be given enough time to find lawyers and challenge their deportations. 'While the court did provide sort of a mixed win, I think there is very good reason to be concerned that the process afforded to these individuals is going to be lacking,' he said. 'With an administration that shoots first and really doesn't ask questions ever, I think we're going to see a lot more mistakes taking place through these kinds of removals.' Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder and chief executive of the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center, represents a gay makeup artist who was seeking asylum when the Trump administration deported him to the Salvadoran prison. Officials cited his crown tattoos as evidence of him being a member of Tren de Aragua. Toczylowski said the due process review required by the Supreme Court will be a disaster in practice. 'Most people forcibly sent to El Salvador were unrepresented,' she wrote on X. Referring to their detention in Texas, she added, 'Trump purposefully moved them to remote detention centers in TX pre-rendition.' Once these cases begin weaving their way through the court system and one makes it to the Supreme Court, the public will pretty quickly see what the court really thinks about use of the wartime law, said Gabriel 'Jack' Chin, a professor who studies the intersection of criminal and immigration law at UC Berkeley. 'I'm not worried yet,' he said. Jawetz said many questions remain to be answered by the Supreme Court, among them: What happens to those already deported under the Alien Enemies Act? Can this wartime authority be invoked during a time of peace and against a nongovernmental entity? With the deportation pause lifted, those questions could now work their way through the court system in a much more rushed and chaotic fashion, Jawetz said. In a separate decision Monday, the Supreme Court paused a lower court's order requiring the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who Trump administration lawyers admitted was wrongly deported to the El Salvador prison. Such court-ordered returns are somewhat rare but have taken place. The administration has said it has no way to bring back the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was not deported under the Alien Enemies Act. If the justices decide that the Trump administration cannot be required to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., 'there's very limited hope that the courts will step in and say any of these folks who have been sent to rot in the Salvadoran prison have a chance of getting their day in court,' Jawetz said.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
An appeals court upheld a block to Trump's Alien Enemies Act order. What happens next?
An appeals court sided with a judge who previously put a block on President Trump's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected undocumented immigrants. ACLU Deputy Director of the Immigrants' Rights Project Lee Gelernt explains why this was a victory for immigrants' rights and what the ACLU plans on doing next in the legal battle.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ACLU sues Trump administration to halt immigrant transfers to Guantanamo
Immigrant rights groups sued the Trump administration on Saturday in hopes of stopping the transfer of immigrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo Bay, according to the suit filed by multiple legal advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union. The legal groups filed the lawsuit in Washington, D.C., federal court on behalf of 10 migrants who are in immigration custody in the U.S. and who they say are at 'imminent risk' of being transferred to the American detention camp in Cuba without legal authority. The suit alleges the transfers are 'arbitrary and capricious' and violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution, citing the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment. The individuals who are at risk of transfer and detention at Guantanamo include seven Venezuelan nationals, one Afghan national, one Pakistani national and one Bangladeshi national. 'They all have final orders of removal and may [be] transferred at any time, placing them at immediate risk of harm, including the denial of access to the outside world and the likelihood of being subject to horrific, punitive conditions at Guantánamo,' the advocacy groups alleged in their request for an emergency stay in the transfer of the 10 individuals. In the suit, the groups said they aren't challenging the administration's authority to 'detain the individuals on U.S. soil or to directly remove them to their home country or another statutorily authorized country' but the 'government's unprecedented and unlawful decision to transfer and detain them at Guantanamo.' The groups added, 'Never before has the federal government moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the United States on civil immigration charges to Guantánamo. Nor is there any legitimate reason to do so now. The government has ample detention capacity inside the United States, which is far less costly and poses none of the logistical hurdles attendant to detaining people on Guantánamo.' Lee Gelernt, the lead counsel in the case and the deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, referred to the move as 'theatrics.' 'Sending immigrants to a remote abusive prison is not only illegal and unprecedented, but illogical given the additional cost and logistical complications. Ultimately this is about theatrics,' Gelernt said in a statement. According to the ACLU, the 10 individuals are not gang members and are not 'high risk criminal aliens,' which is the language at the heart of President Donald Trump's executive order allowing migrants to be transferred to Guantanamo. The government has not provided any notice of when transfers will occur or who will be transferred. But some of these men have already been threatened with transfer to Guantanamo, the ACLU said. The groups added in the filing that 'the government has refused to provide notice of transfers to Guantánamo, so they can occur at any moment.' Last month, the groups filed a suit against the government on behalf of detainees' family members and groups that provide immigration legal services, claiming the government thwarted 'access to counsel for immigrant detainees' who were transferred from the U.S. and held at Guantanamo, according to the complaint. In response to the lawsuit, the administration revealed it had detained 178 migrants from Venezuela at Guantanamo Bay. A senior administration official told NBC News last month that all detainees held there were cleared from the facility. Over 170 Venezuelan migrants were deported and one was returned to detention in the U.S. shortly after the administration had begun housing migrants at the facility. 'Nothing in U.S. law authorizes ICE to detain people in foreign countries, but that appears to be of no concern to the Trump administration,' Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said in a statement. 'For an administration that has been touting supposed efficiency with taxpayer dollars, President Trump seems eager to waste money on unnecessary and unlawful mistreatment of immigrants.' This article was originally published on
