My friend Morgan Smith wrote this note about the Rio Grande in July 2024. Learn more about Morgan here , here and here .
J.A.M. v. USA "The Court holds that Oscar is entitled to a much lower, but still notable award of $175,000 because he was somewhat older at the time of the incident, was detained for about half...
Path2Papers, July 17, 2024 " What are the policy changes the Biden administration is implementing regarding temporary work visas? On June 18, 2024, the Biden administration announced a policy...
DOJ, July 18, 2024 "The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs Inc. (Southwest Key), a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied children who are...
Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters, July 18, 2024 "Even with all the industries where Californians went on strike during last year’s “hot labor summer,” some of the most active sites of...
Nicholas Iovino, Courthouse News, Nov. 16, 2018 - "A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a policy that allegedly treats non-citizens in the military as “second-class recruits” and prevents them from starting basic training.
“We are very happy that the court has at least preliminarily struck down this policy and has allowed immigrants to start their military careers,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Sameer Ahmed of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar found the Trump administration failed to justify the policy, which bans non-citizen enlistees from starting basic training until after their lengthy background investigations are complete. Prior to October 2017, citizens and non-citizens could start basic training while their background checks were pending.
“If there was no evidence that [legal permanent residents] posed a greater security risk, this policy change is by definition arbitrary and capricious,” Tigar wrote in his 55-page ruling.
The Department of Defense had argued that the policy was enacted for national security reasons because non-citizens “have comparatively higher rates of foreign contacts and likelihood of foreign influence.”
Tigar found the government lacked evidence to back up its claim that legal permanent residents pose a greater security risk than regular citizens.
The injunction means enlistees like lead plaintiff Jiahao Kuang, who has lived in the U.S. since age 8 and signed up to join the Navy after high school, can start their military careers without delay."