Latest news with #SouthwesternLawSchool
CNA
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNA
CNA938 Rewind - Los Angeles protests: What would it take to quell escalating tensions?
CNA938 Rewind Downtown Los Angeles is under curfew as protests against ICE raids and troop deployments in the city continue. Similar protests have popped up across the U.S, including in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas and Washington DC. Andrea Heng and Susan Ng get the latest from Rachel Van Landingham, Co-Associate Dean of Research and Irwin R Buchalter Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
I Was Stephen Miller's Student Body President. Now I'm Saving Migrants From Him
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller kept pushing for 3,000 immigration arrests a day, a former high school classmate who became a leading immigration lawyer was in court on Wednesday. Cynthia Santiago remembers being on stage with Miller in 2002, when they were both running for student government at Santa Monica High School at the western edge of Los Angeles. She recalls that Miller was as much a deliberately provocative attention seeker then as now, and his microphone was turned off just a few moments into his campaign speech as a candidate for speaker of the house. 'I'm Stephen Miller,' he began. 'I'm the only candidate up here who really stands out… I will say and I will do things that no one else in their right mind would say or do." And then he did just that. 'Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash, when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us?' he asked. Santiago might have been more surprised if she had not heard him speak dismissively in class about diversity, affirmative action, welfare, non-English speakers and anyone else who did not completely assimilate to his notion of being an American, all of it derived from right-wing writings. The reaction of his fellow students to his truncated speech presaged the fate of his candidacy. 'They booed him off,' Santiago recalled on Wednesday. 'He lost.' Miller could not have been pleased when Santiago became the school's first Latina student body president. 'He was very vocal about his political views of communities of color,' she noted. 'We celebrated diversity, and we were respectful to our staff and to the custodians on campus.' Santiago went on to Wesleyan University and then Southwestern Law School. She began working immigration cases in 2012, when the Obama administration instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which offered a temporary shield to young immigrants who arrived in the United States. 'We were able to help a lot of young folks that could benefit from the DACA program,' she said. But at the same time, Obama was starting to make a name for himself as the 'deporter-in-chief.' 'I also saw the side of many families being put into detention for being turned over by local law enforcement, because there was a very high number of contracts with local law enforcement, including in LA County,' Santiago remembered. She had one case involving a woman in Santa Monica who had just dropped off her child at middle school when she was arrested for driving without a license. The police turned the woman over to ICE, which put her on a bus to Mexico just as Santiago was in court, securing a deportation stay. The driver was instructed to keep the woman aboard when the bus reached the border and bring her back. 'She was returned back that night, so she was able to be reunited with her family,' Santiago reported. Santiago also represented a man on the same bus who had been picked up outside his home on the way to work. He too was returned. When Trump was elected to a first term, her classmate Miller's politics made him a perfect fit for a position at the White House. 'I was very concerned about where his thoughts were going, his views on immigration and the immigrant communities, his views against diversity in the United States,' she recalled. But Miller's time seemed to pass when Joe Biden defeated Trump. Deportations eased up, but Biden increased them as Trump sought to revive his political fortunes by conjuring fears of an invading horde of murderers, rapists and mental patients across the southern border. After Trump returned to office, he made Miller his deputy chief of staff. Miller had been relatively quiet during the campaign, and Santiago figures he spent the years in exile immersed in right-wing writings such as those that informed his world view during high school, a view that was more of an imagined past than the actual moment. 'A lot of the thoughts are just things that he digs from history, and not very much a perspective of the world we live in today,' she said. 'So, he's trying to repeat history, which is what we see now.' Trump declared that his second term was going to see mass deportations. But that requires more than a Sharpie signature on an executive order. And Miller began to push, push, push for it to happen. ICE had been hunting down actual murderers and rapists but there was not enough of them to deliver a fraction of the 3,000 arrests a day Miller was demanding. Miller declared that even people who followed all the official procedures before crossing the border and applied for asylum are criminals. ICE mounted ever more raids, including at a Los Angeles clothing company on Monday that triggered an impromptu protest, during which police arrested a prominent union leader. An unfounded rumor of another raid led to more protests. Trump used the disturbances as a pretext to activate the California National Guard without the approval of its Gov. Gavin Newsom. As Newsom predicted, the arrival of soldiers on the street only inflamed the situation, though not to the degree that Trump claims. The LAPD said that it could handle the situation without the military, but Trump went ahead and activated a Marine Corps unit to augment the guard who were not needed in the first place. Meanwhile, fear driven rumors reached Miller and Santiago's alma mater. The superintendent of the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District posted a letter on its website. 'I am writing to you today because I understand that many of you are feeling deeply concerned and anxious about recent reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the greater Los Angeles area,' Superintendent Dr. Antonio Shelton wrote on June 9. 'We have heard the rumors circulating about ICE patrols in and around our schools and the Santa Monica community… As of 2:30 p.m. today, these sightings have not been confirmed, and we can assure you that ICE officials are not currently present in or at our schools.' Shelton went on, 'We recognize that the unrest unfolding across Los Angeles, sparked by reports of ICE raids in public spaces, is unsettling. For many of our families, these fears are very real and can make daily activities like leaving home, using public transportation, or even bringing your children to school feel daunting. We want to emphasize that the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, (SMMUSD), along with the City of Santa Monica and the SMPD, remains committed to supporting and serving every single one of our families.' As the high school was preparing for its 2025 graduation on Wednesday, Miller was at the White House, expecting more arrests. Santiago was at Santa Ana Immigration Court, asking a judge to give her time to study the particulars of a new case. The client has no criminal history, and the judge agreed. That gives the client an interim reprieve. While there, Santiago observed a new tactic by the government to increase the number of deportees. The government has been going back to pending asylum cases that have been filed away as favorable. 'So they can put them back into court and try to deport them,' Santiago said. 'Every angle they can, they're doing this.' Then, having brought the asylum seeker into court and revived the case, the government asks the judge to dismiss it. And that removes the temporary protection asylum seekers receive when they successfully apply pending the ultimate outcome. 'The person is basically at an undocumented status with no case pending, and they're vulnerable to be picked up,' Santiago said. 'They have no status, no filing, no case opening.' And in several instances on Wednesday, ICE agents in their usual plainclothes attire of flannel shirts and jeans were waiting in the hallway of the courthouse to make an arrest and take the prisoner out to a van in the parking lot. 'I saw [ICE ] taking people from courtrooms, sticking them in the van,' she told the Daily Beast. 'It's very sad.' The sight was in keeping with the Miller she and her classmates knew back in high school. What she could not have foreseen is that a president would encourage him to do it. 'I don't think anyone imagined that there would be an administration like the one we have,' she said. When she is not in court, the 2003 president of the Santa Monica student body travels California in a van of her own, advising as many people as she can of their rights. 'I'm just, you know, trying to do my best to see who I can help,' Santiago said.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US military troops come in active-duty, Guard, and reserve forces. Here's what each one does.
The National Guard, rooted in colonial militias, serves state needs under governors. Active-duty and reserve forces operate under federal command. Sometimes the National Guard can too. Different laws govern when a president "federalize" the Guard, with special circumstances. The US military fights wars abroad, but it also keeps busy back home. There are different types of forces, though, and rules on what they can and can't do on domestic soil can be confusing. The past few months alone have seen a lot of activity. Active-duty troops are transporting migrants as part of new White House deportation measures, with others deployed to the US-Mexico border. Their counterparts in the National Guard are also active at the border. Other Guard units have helped battle wildfires and assisted with hurricane recovery. The National Guard traces its roots all the way back to colonial America. "The best way to think of the Guard is as a classic citizen-soldier," Rachel VanLandingham, a national security expert and professor at Southwestern Law School, said. Those state militias have transformed over 250 years into individual state National Guards, with around 430,000 members collectively across the nation. The Guard is made up of regular community members such as teachers, bankers, social workers, and so on who can be called up to respond to emergencies at the discretion of their state governors. "When there's a need, they're gonna put on a uniform," VanLandingham said. "But they specifically belong to the state." There are generally two categories of people who join the National Guard, said Katherine Kuzminski, who oversees the Center for a New American Security's military, veterans, and society program. Most National Guard troops are either pursuing a civilian career but still want to serve or were once on active duty but are now part-timers. Like the reserves and active forces, National Guard troops go through basic training with follow-on specialized job training. They hold specific military jobs, which can include anything from truck mechanic or pilot to infantryman or admin specialist. Because active troops are assigned to military bases that are usually far removed from heavily populated areas, leading to less overlap with civilians, most Americans rarely engage with active troops, and are more likely to know someone who's in the Guard or the Reserve. Similar to the Guard, reserve forces are the part time equivalent of the active-duty force. Many reservists are also former full-time troops who were once on active duty. Reservists frequently belong to units based outside their home states, meaning they might travel monthly to "drill," performing routine duties to stay fresh in uniform. Both Guard troops and reservists are usually obligated to serve one weekend a month in uniform and then at least two consecutive weeks yearly to maintain military skillsets. Active-duty service members enlist for a specific number of years, with options to extend. They live on or near the military base to which they are assigned. Most active service members work normal workdays but are expected to undergo long training exercises, perform overnight duties, and are often on call 24/7. The most important differences between Guard, reserve, and active-duty forces are in their chains of command and legal authorities. First, the chain of command for all reservists and active troops is entirely through the Department of Defense, up to the service secretaries and the president. States have no control over reserve forces. Each of the armed services under the Department of Defense has its own reserve component, but only the Army and Air Force have National Guards. States have not historically needed naval forces, Kuzminski said, so the Department of the Navy (which includes the Marine Corps) doesn't have a National Guard component. Right now, there isn't a Space Force National Guard either. Reservists also have the option to "activate," which means that they can become active duty for a set period of time, either deploying abroad or reporting daily to a base stateside for set periods of time. "Activating" can be a popular choice for reservists seeking stability amid economic uncertainty in their civilian work or who are simply eager to deploy and serve. National Guard control is different and a little confusing. Most of the time, the National Guard operates under the purview of their state's governor, VanLandingham said. When called by the governor, Guard troops most often are responding to natural disasters or emergencies, like those in North Carolina who responded to Hurricane Helene last year or those in California who activated in response to the recent fires. National Guard troops were also deployed to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, amid riotous efforts to contest the election. "Guardsmen belong to a service, but their chain of command goes to their governor," Kuzminski said. A president or governor can request to "federalize" their guard troops, putting them on loan to the nation. When the Guard is federalized, those troops swap to operate under different laws that govern the rest of the DoD, known as Title 10. Federalized Guard troops were vital for the Global War on Terror, said Kuzminski. Hundreds of thousands deployed over the years. But federal adherence to the legalese that governs Guard operations has made headlines in recent years. During President Donald Trump's first term, he brought in unfederalized, out-of-state Guard troops to Washington, DC, a non-state jurisdiction, to quell protests. Some experts said the move jeopardized laws preventing the unconstitutional use of troops at home. Governors can activate their National Guard troops to serve in certain domestic law enforcement roles at home, but all of the key constitutional guarantees still matter, VanLandingham said. "It's not like different rules apply." The Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in this role though. To circumvent Posse Comitatus, presidents can lean on the Insurrection Act. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of using the military at home more recently, leading some legal experts to say the Insurrection Act is overdue for reform. Read the original article on Business Insider
