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The American Civil Liberties Union this week shared an open letter to general counsels at colleges and universities across the nation outlining their responsibilities and rights when dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigations and enforcement actions.

Amid the growing retaliatory crackdown against noncitizen students for their First Amendment-protected speech and advocacy, the open letter explains that colleges and universities are not violating the law by providing housing or services to noncitizen students, including students whose visas have been revoked by the government. It further advises institutions that they are legally able to refuse to comply with warrantless searches of non-public areas, like dorm rooms, by ICE agents.

The letter also outlines a legal framework for responding to administrative subpoenas from ICE. In consultation with legal counsel, universities generally maintain the right to not respond to administrative subpoenas unless and until ICE obtains an enforcement order from a judge. Universities also have the right to publicize the subpoenas or alert students if their information has been targeted by an ICE subpoena.

“Universities must do everything they can to protect their students from intimidation or targeting by ICE, and they have the legal right to do so,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “We reject the federal government’s extreme claim that housing and educating noncitizen students can violate the law. We hope this letter will empower institutions to stand firm in the face of radical bullying tactics.”

The letter can be read in full here.

Related Documents

• Open Letter to College and University General Counsels on: 1) 8 U.S.C. § 1324 Harboring Liability, and 2) ICE Administrative Subpoenas

Over 32 prominent Jewish scholars of antisemitism, Holocaust Studies, and Jewish History today challenged the Trump administration’s authoritarian crackdown on free speech by demonstrating the danger and falsehood of its false claims to care about Jewish safety. The Trump administration uses the guise of fighting antisemitism in order to attack the Palestinian rights movement and enact its broader authoritarian agenda including dismantling higher education and targeting student activists. Trump and his allies use a controversial, dangerous, and discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism, which inaccurately conflates criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism. The IHRA definition and its associated examples have been criticized and rejected by Jewish, Palestinian, Israeli, civil rights, and human rights organizations for years.

The first Trump administration embraced the discredited IHRA definition in a 2019 Executive Order and has reinforced it in another EO from January 2025. Over the last several months, the IHRA definition has been a tool in the Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services’ broad attacks on universities, including their withholding billions in federal funds from institutions of higher education, and their egregious detainment of student activists. The Trump administration is now pushing universities to adopt this flawed definition of antisemitism, as part of a broader campaign of censorship and ideological control over universities. Many scholars, including Kenneth Stern, the author of the definition, have warned that Trump is using this definition to attack academic freedom and free speech.

Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University: “We take action to expose the absurdity of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Hundreds of Jewish scholars around the world oppose it, including those who have publicly violated it today in rallies and protests in cities and campuses across the United States. The IHRA definition prohibits experts from talking about well-documented historical and contemporary realities, such as the systemic racism in Israel that is expressed explicitly and in unashamed terms in Israel's own Jewish Nation-State Basic Law. The IHRA definition also requires us to censor truths about Israel’s genocide in Gaza documented by the UN, Amnesty Internation, Human Rights Watch, and a growing number of Holocaust and genocide scholars who describe the killing of more than 50,000 Palestinians, including over 18,000 children, as a genocide. As a Jewish-Israeli scholar of the Holocaust who grew up with four grandparents who had survived the Holocaust, I reject this definition and I am proud to join dozens of Jewish scholars today in violating it and insisting on the value of our expertise and our scholarship.”

The intentional violations of the discredited IHRA definition took place across the country as part of a larger “Day of Action” organized by the Coalition for Action in Higher Education, in partnership with the American Association of University Professors, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other organizations.. Scores of other scholars, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and the Liberatory Jewish Studies Network, engaged in similar violations at rallies across the country and in recorded statements.
The flawed IHRA definition outlines several examples of “contemporary antisemitism” that dangerously and falsely conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. For example, the definition asserts that it is antisemitic to “draw.. comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” This provision is an egregious overreach that silences Holocaust scholars and Holocaust survivors who have found it necessary to draw comparisons.

At the AAUP-organized New York City rally in Foley Square, Marianne Hirsch, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and a scholar of Holocaust Memory at Columbia University said: “The widespread embrace of the confusing IHRA definition of antisemitism has created a crisis in my field of Genocide and Holocaust Studies. When I teach the history and memory of the Holocaust, I necessarily use historical analogy as a method of knowledge and inquiry. We learn things by comparing, as long as we do it with care. Right now, it is irresponsible to teach the Nazi persecution of Jews – which included ethnic cleansing, population transfer, starvation, expulsion and murder —without referring to the Israeli military’s brutal assault on Gaza. To do so is to violate the terms of the IHRA definition. Not to do so is to capitulate our intellectual integrity as scholars, our moral fiber as human beings and our sense of justice as citizens.”

Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing at JVP: “The white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and far-right authoritarians driving Trump’s so-called antisemitism policy do not care about Jewish safety. They embrace discredited definitions of antisemitism as a tool to attack social movements , rip visa holders away from their families and communities, and dismantle higher education. Today, some of the most prominent scholars of antisemitism, Holocaust Studies, and Jewish history are putting themselves on the line and laying out a challenge for every college and university president: will you continue to bow down to Trump’s demands or believe the experts and reject the IHRA definition and stand up for free speech.”
Interviews with scholars including Raz Segal, Marianne Hirsch, and Judith Butler available upon request

Participants include:

Rabbi Dr. Rebecca T. Alpert, Professor of Religion Emerita at TempleDr. Joel Benin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. Dr. Bernadette Brooten, Kraft-Hiatt Professor Emerita of Christian Studies and Professor Emerita of Women's and Gender Studies at Brandeis University.Dr. Rachel Ida Buff, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.Dr. Judith Butler, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley Dr. Hasia Diner, Paul And Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University.Dr. Jonathan Feingold, Associate Professor of Law, Boston University.Dr. Penny Gold, Burkhardt Distinguished Professor of History, Emerita at Knox College.Dr. Emmaia Gelman, professor in Social Sciences at Sarah Lawrence College and the founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism.Dr. Lisa Heineman, Professor of History, University of IowaDr. Marianne Hirsch, William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature and the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University. Dr. Nitzan Lebovic, Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values at Lehigh University.Dr. Bruce Levine, J. G. Randall Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignDr. Mark Levine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Irvine.Dr. Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Gender at Temple University.Dr. Zachary Lockman, Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and History at New York University.Nina Mehta, Co-Director of PARCEO.Dr. Eli Myerhoff, AAUP Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom Fellow.Dr. Donna Nevel, co-director of PARCEO and an expert in antisemitism.Dr. Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at Notre Dame University.Dr. Penny Rosenwasser, City College of San Francisco. Dr. Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing, Jewish Voice for Peace.Dr. Rayaa Rusenko, Independent Scholar, National Coalition of Independent Scholars.Dr. Jennifer Ruth, Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Professor of Film at Portland State University.Dr. Daniel Segal, Jean M. Pitzer Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Professor Emeritus of History at Pitzer College.Dr. Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University.Dr. Aaron Shakow, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard University.Dr. Victor Silverman, Emeritus Professor of History, Pomona College.Dr. David Slavin, Emory University.Dr. Tamir Sorek, Liberal Arts Professor of Middle East History at Penn State University. Dr. Arlene Stein, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Rutgers UniversityDr. Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University.Dr. Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan.

In a "breathtaking departure from the rule of law" - and facing multiple legal routs - Trump and his fascist flunkies continue to lie, stall and gaslight on their right to disappear a Maryland sheet metal worker and other brown-skinned migrants to an El Salvador gulag with zero evidence of wrongdoing, even as ICE Gestapo still run rampant - Smashed Windshields 'R Us - and oh yeah U.S. citizens may be next. Take note, says historian Timothy Snyder: "This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror."

The escalating legal standoff over the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has in turn become a "political flashpoint" on an already fiercely divided Capitol Hill. To most of us, the case symbolizes a racist crackdown that threatens the basic rights of us all, while the regime's increasingly flagrant violations of court orders threaten the very rule of law. Dug into an alternate reality, the regime argues it's nobly fighting for "the safety of American citizens" against raping, murdering "illegal aliens," "foreign criminals," and "terrorists" like Garcia, who came here from El Salvador without papers at 16, has never been charged with a crime, was granted protection under a 2019 court order due to a "credible fear" of violence from gangs back home, is now a union member and father of three married to a U.S. citizen, and is alleged to be a member of the MS-13 gang because he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie "indicative" of gang membership, and a detective - since suspended for being a lying scum bag - said he was.

Despite what one judge politely calls their "flimsy" evidence, the cabal of miscreants is so desperate to prove their racist, rapey case they launched a propaganda campaign of smears and lies against Garcia. This week, it culminated in a sordid set piece that saw the self-proclaimed "world's coolest dictator," El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, and America's mob boss and "deteriorating carnival clown" happily "bond over human-rights abuses" in an Oval Office now transformed into a gaudy, blinged-out "Golden Office for the Golden Age" awash in tacky faux-gold gimcracks - on fireplace, mantle, reportedly doorway - evidently bought online from China's Guangzhou Homemax Decorative Company as part of their "High-density Home Decoration Polyurethane Appliques Ornament" line. FYI, one enterprising journalist found, they're still available, cheap. From Guangzhou: "Hello Sir. Yes we have this model. Do you need gold color, please?” Maybe with hacksaws?

In the squalid pageantry of the meeting, "a microcosm of everything bad about Trump ll," Bukele eagerly brown-nosed the mad king: "What you're doing with the border is incredible!" Then, in exchange for a hefty chunk of blood money, he offered to use his "iron fist" tactics against America's alleged criminals just like for his own, three-year war against gangs, in which tens of thousands of his people have been disappeared into brutal prisons "without even the illusion of due process." Bukele achieved this goal by declaring a "State of Exception" that was supposed to last 30 days but which has been extended 37 times. Historically, it's a key strategem of Soviet and Nazi fascists, who accurately reason that if they can convince their populace these are exceptional times, they will be more inclined to accept the growing lawlessness. For Trump, a vengeful, aspiring autocrat who's never had any use for due process and only seeks to escape, not follow the law, it's a perfect, ghastly model; it's also state terror.

Before the presser but with cameras rolling, Trump pulled his new fascist bestie aside to happily confide, "Home-growns are next...You're gonna need to build about five more places." Contented grins all around. His suggestion that his next target will be American citizens he doesn't like was, like so much that's come before, both shocking and unsurprising. He's previously said his pretend A.G. Pam Bondi was "studying the laws" to see if they can get away with deporting "really bad people" who also happen to be citizens. "If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem with it," he's said. "If we can do that, that's good." In his confab with Bukele, he again blithely confirmed "I'd like to go a step further." Asked if that means he's okay with rounding up Americans who might disagree with him, in this case about half the country, to a gulag in El Salvador, he babbled, "If they are criminals and they hit people with baseball bats over the head (or) rape 87-year-old women, yeah, that includes them."

The exchange was just one of many during a hair-raising shitshow in which the regime's assembled ghouls and flunkies dutifully snickered, groveled, showboated and lied; inexplicably, video of the grisly spectacle appeared on a split screen with ads for obscure products like Angelpaste Miracle Cream: "Experience the miracle at angelpaste.com." Bondi's stonefaced, talking-points pablum on state-sponsored disappearances: "It's a legal question the president is looking into...He has given us a directive to make America safe again." The issue of Garcia's life or death is "foreign policy" and out of their hands, intoned Marco Rubio, who just announced the closure of the State Dept.'s agency for fighting disinformation, though he called it “Protecting and Championing Free Speech." Sternly nodding along was Barbie Dress-up Noem, who's spending $200 million on glam photo-ops, including her $9 million war-crime appearance at CECOT, funded by the now-shuttered DHS Office for Civil Rights, to tell migrants to "Leave now."

Naturally, Bukele joined the tawdry Oval Office pageant. Asked if he plans to return Garcia, he scoffed, "How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I'm not going to do it. We're not fond of smuggling terrorists into our country. The question is preposterous." Cue Trump nodding, smirking, twisting the question into another ugly WTF attack on the assembled press: "Well, they'd love to have a criminal released here. They would love it. These are sick people." (Pot/kettle). In another exchange, he suggested the press doesn't "want to put out good figures because I think they hate our country actually." Besides, Trump added, those torture porn videos of hunched-over prisoners at CECOT are just what's needed: "People eat it up, that’s what people want to see.” Bukele, author of the brutality, nodding sagely: "Mr President, you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some."

The grotesque twisting of language into an Orwellian, up-is-down reality - justifying Garcia's exile under a wartime rule to say he's part of Venezuelan gangs "invading" us though they're not, nor is he Venezuelan or a gangster, crushing free speech and academic discourse in the name of fighting anti-Semitism - is integral to their dystopian mission. On Tyranny''s Timothy Snyder notes that for a state to commit "criminal terror" against its people," it must dehumanize victims by inverting meanings - Stalin called his targets "criminals" and "terrorists, Hitler, "vermin" and "traitors," all clearly unworthy of protection. MAGA's language continues to warp and spiral: Wingnut "counterterrorism" flunky Sebastian Gorka now claims a regime that illegally expels masses of people without due process "loves" America - "We have people who love America, the president, his Cabinet" - and "then there (those) on the side of the cartel members, the illegal aliens, the terrorists, and you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them?"

The evil overlord of depraved language is mountingly hysterical Stephen Goebbels. In the Bukele meeting, he ranted reporters "want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children." On Fox News later, he melted down, shrieking at host Bill Hemmer he had it "all wrong," and actually "we won the Supreme Court case" (lost, 9-0), to return Garcia "would be "kidnapping" and "an unimaginable invasion of El Salvador," the lawyer who said his removal was "an error" (as did several White House officials) was "a saboteur, a Democrat" who has been suspended and then fired cause that's how Stalin rolls. "Nobody was mistakenly deported anywhere," he screamed, his voice higher and higher. No mistake was made...He’s an illegal alien from El Salvador! This was the right person sent to the right place!" Then, he furiously bellowed at Hemmer, “So Bill, you tell me what country should we deport him to? Tell me!" To this, fact-checker Daniel Dale declared his claim of "some lefty saboteur at the DOJ" was "nonsense."

On regime actions lawyers have almost universally deemed "pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional,” the courts have echoed him. That goes from the unanimous (brazenly defied) Supreme Court ruling the government must “facilitate Garcia’s return, to a lower court ruling blasting his deportation as illegal, to Wednesday's bombshell ruling by Judge James Boasberg - who Trump obviously wants to impeach - finding probable cause to hold the administration in criminal contempt for ignoring everything he's told them to do. "The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders - especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it," wrote the long-stonewalled Boasberg, mildly noting the government has "defied the Court's order deliberately and gleefully.” Once again, he gave them some slack, time and options they didn't deserve; once again, they appealed, but briefly because c'mon we all know they have zilch in the way of new facts or arguments to offer.

As a result of these manifold atrocities, argues Thom Hartmann, "The old American order is dead. It ended on April 14, 2025, when a Latin American strongman sat in the Oval Office and discussed sending U.S. citizens to foreign concentration camps with the American president while they jointly defied the Supreme Court." As sorry proof, he cites all the basic tenets of U.S. constitutional law defiled - habeas corpus, due process, right to trial and counsel, no cruel or unusual punishment - that echo Jefferson's critiques of King George, a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations...submitted to a candid world." That mad king "refused his assent" to laws for the public good, obstructed justice, made judges dependent "on his will alone," transported us "beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses," thus rendering him "a Tyrant...unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Today, he says, "Everyone who is not part of the authoritarian regime is a member of the dissident movement now. The sooner they realize it, the better."

That truth is especially urgent, argues Jonathan Last, given the savage spectre of CECOT, where 90% of inmates have never been convicted of a crime, 75% haven't even been arrested, and none will likely get out. "This is not incarceration; it is liquidation," he writes of an "arbitrary, opaque" political act where, "There is only power." Democrats should be "on the ground every day until Garcia is brought home," and before more innocents land there, in the fierce mode of Poland's Solidarity or Navalny’s People’s Alliance. Maryland's Dem Sen. Chris Van Hollen tried. He flew to El Salvador to meet with Garcia, his constituent; he was initially turned away but finally did, without offering any updates, though Bukele posted a "death camps" jibe. In contrast, West Virginia GOP Rep. Riley Moore was both allowed into CECOT and got to join the MAGA torture porn trend by posting selfies - inane thumbs up! - before caged "brutal criminals" who made him "even more determined to support (Trump's) efforts to secure our homeland." One local headline: "Moore Gives CECOT Two Thumbs Up."

MAGA thugs have stubbornly clung to their talking points: Tom Homan called Dem demands for due process "disgusting," and Barbie Press Secretary sneered that, judging from their "sensationalism, you'd think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year." Still, it's becoming clear, per one pundit, that, "Disappearing innocent immigrants into foreign slave-labor gulags - and then promising to do the same to American citizens - is a losing issue for Republicans." At rowdy town halls, Iowa's Chuck Grassley drew jeers and angry queries like, "You going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?", and Klan Mom MTG faced a barrage of hostile questions she responded to by sneering, lying, and sending thugs to remove or tase several constituents. MAGA also lost bigly in court on their appeal of a judge's order to "facilitate" Garcia's return, with a Reagan-appointed Court of Appeals judge issuing a scathing rebuke of their shocking," "extraordinary" defiance and failure to "perceive the rule of law as vital to American ethos."

Meanwhile, the state terror goes on. Two weeks ago, Elsy Noemi Berrios, a 52-year-old Salvadoran mother of four with a work permit, pending asylum application and no criminal record, was taken into custody in Maryland as she and 18-year-old daughter were driving to work; federal agents in tactical gear stopped their car, refused to provide a search warrant when she asked, and instead smashed her driver's side car window before handcuffing her behind her back as her daughter Cruz screamed, “Mommy, no. Mommy.” She is still being held at a Pennsylvania prison, but her lawyer says DHS has yet to offer any evidence or even arrest warrant. Her daughter says her mom works hard to support her and her siblings, and "has done everything right." A DHS lackey says Berrios "has been identified as an associate of the vicious MS-13 gang, Americans can rest assured she is off our streets and locked up, and the media (should) stop doing the bidding of gangs that murder, maim, rape, and terrorize Americans."

In March in Massachusetts, ICE "enhanced enforcement operations” detained 370 "criminal aliens"; in New Bedford, they included three workers at the Minit Man Car Wash, one at Bob’s Tires, and two men inside their house after agents battered down the door and pointed their guns at children eating breakfast before school. Monday, agents also arrested Juan Francisco Méndez, 29, a Guatemalan with no criminal record in the final stage of his asylum case; his wife Marilu and their 9-year-old son have protected status. Mendez was detained after three carloads of agents in bulletproof vests blocked the car he and Mariu were driving in; as Marilu began recording, he called their lawyer Ondine Galvez Sniffin, who told them to stay put until she arrived. Marilu asked to see a warrant; an agent stared dumbly. Then he shattered their rear window with a pick axe - Marilu gasps - and dragged them out. When Sniffin got there, agents had bustled Mendez to prison. Marilu said they kept calling Juan "Antonio," the name of another man who lives in their building: Your government at work. "My clients were within their rights, and they were met with brutality,” Sniffin said. "I'm ashamed of what this country is becoming." She is not alone.

Update: Twenty-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S.-born citizen, was detained by ICE in Florida Wednesday and charged with illegally entering the state as an "unauthorized alien." Lopez-Gomez was a passenger in a car pulled over by a state trooper who said the driver was going 78 mph in a 65 mph zone. Following public pressure and protests, he has now been released. Still: "The leap from disappearing the undocumented to disappearing visa holders to disappearing green-card holders to disappearing naturalized citizens to disappearing natural-born citizens is no leap at all, but a series of tiny steps."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Responding to a US court ruling declaring Google’s online advertising monopoly illegal, Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said:

“A rights respecting break-up of Google’s monopolistic hold could be an important first step towards an online world that respects human rights. By eroding the dominance of a single corporation and weakening Google’s control over our data, it makes space that must be filled by actors committed to upholding human rights.”

“As the world’s most used search engine, Google wields enormous power over whether people can navigate the internet with assurance that their rights are protected. Every company has a responsibility to respect human rights, and Google has failed to adequately demonstrate how its model can uphold users’ rights.

“It is extremely difficult to go online without having to hand over personal data to Google and other big tech companies, even when you have not signed up for their services or consented to this intrusion and monetization of your private data.

“Now that Google’s advertising services have been ruled an illegal monopoly, it is time to move toward a rights-respecting structural break-up of Google.”

AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after a mass shooting today at Florida State University, following other incidents this week in Dallas and San Antonio. One of the people injured was a member of United Faculty of Florida, which is affiliated nationally with the AFT.

“This is the third incident of devastating gun violence in and around schools in as many days—and they’re occurring in states with the loosest gun regulations. Campuses and classrooms must be safe and welcoming places, but they can become unsafe in an instant because of the ever-present threat of gun violence.

“We are the only country in the world that regularly deals with this—but we don’t have to live this way. Today, we both pray for the dead and injured and redouble our efforts to advocate for common sense gun laws that could help end this grave public health crisis. We should remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines and pass more risk-protection laws.

“The perpetrator of this monstrous act must be held to account. Shooting innocent people is never a solution. And lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences.”

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google maintains an illegal online advertising monopoly. The internet search megacompany faces another court date soon to determine remedies after another federal judge ruled last fall that it broke the law by maintaining an illegal monopoly over online searches. Demand Progress Education Fund previously joined a letter asking the government to probe Google’s online video monopoly and recently asked the government to review Google’s $32 billion dollar deal to acquire Wiz, a leading cloud cybersecurity company.

The following is a statement from Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress Education Fund:

“Our nation has grown prosperous and powerful because of competition and Google’s illegal monopolies are blunting our competitive edge in the tech industry. The company’s near-total dominance of the online advertising market hurts media companies, rival search engines, social media companies and anyone who consumes media on the internet. As one of the richest, most powerful companies in the history of humanity, a mere fine or slap on the wrist won’t cut it. For the good of our nation and the health of our tech and media industries the government must force Google to sell its advertising technology division.”

A new Public Citizen report found that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (DOJ) prosecuted fewer corporate criminals in 2024 than in any previous year over the past three decades. Over the course of Biden’s four-year term, the DOJ prosecuted fewer corporate criminals than any previous president’s four-term as far back as the first Clinton administration.

The prosecution of only 80 corporations in 2024 – a 29% drop from the previous fiscal year – caps off a disappointing term by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who vowed to ramp up enforcement against corporate crime and failed.

Garland and Monaco’s DOJ continued to overrely on corporate leniency agreements and declinations, allowing corporations that admit to criminal misconduct – including harassment, financial crime, fraud, and bribery – to avoid prosecution. Among the corporations that avoided prosecution through leniency agreements during Biden’s final year in office were Morgan Stanley, Wynn Las Vegas, and eBay.

“The Biden administration’s broken promise to crack down on corporate crime was a tragic missed opportunity to restore faith in the Justice Department by demonstrating that the wealthy and powerful are not above the law,” said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the report. “Now that Trump is in power, there’s every reason to expect a drop off in corporate enforcement from the already low Biden baseline.”

Corporate enforcement plummeted the first time President Donald Trump took office, and so far, Trump has already halted or dropped more than 100 enforcement actions against corporate misconduct from several federal agencies. Trump’s DOJ inherited at least 188 investigations and cases against alleged corporate misconduct from the Biden administration. Of those, 27 have already been halted, and ten have been dismissed or withdrawn, according to Public Citizen’s report.

The Trump administration issued a proposed rule today that would rescind nearly all habitat protections for endangered species nationwide. These protections for the places where endangered plants and animals live are crucial to ensuring they don’t go extinct.

“There’s just no way to protect animals and plants from extinction without protecting the places they live, yet the Trump administration is opening the flood gates to immeasurable habitat destruction,” said Noah Greenwald, codirector of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This administration’s greed and contempt for imperiled wildlife know no bounds, but most Americans know that we destroy the natural world at our own peril. Nobody voted to drive spotted owls, Florida panthers or grizzly bears to extinction.”

The Endangered Species Act prohibits “take” of endangered species by any person, including individuals, government entities and corporations. Take has been defined to include actions that “harm” endangered species through “significant habitat modification or degradation.”

Today’s proposal would fully rescind this definition, opening the door for industries of all kinds to destroy the natural world and drive species to extinction in the process.

Given that habitat destruction is the biggest cause of extinction, this definition of harm has been pivotal to protecting and recovering endangered species. It was upheld in the Supreme Court case Babbitt v. Sweet Home - 515 U.S. 687 (1995). The inclusion of habitat destruction in the prohibition on take has been critical to saving species. It’s a key difference between the federal Endangered Species Act and almost all state endangered species laws.

“Without a prohibition on habitat destruction, spotted owls, sea turtles, salmon and so many more imperiled animals won’t stand a chance,” said Greenwald. “Trump is trying to drive a knife through the heart of the Endangered Species Act. We refuse to let him wipe out America’s imperiled wildlife, and I believe the courts won’t allow this radical assault on conservation.”

Students in Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools on military bases sued today, arguing that DoDEA’s book removals and curricular changes following several executive orders from President Donald Trump violate their First Amendment rights. DoDEA operates 161 schools across 11 countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

The suit was filed on behalf of 12 students from six families, ranging in age from pre-K to 11th grade, that attend DoDEA schools as children of active duty servicemembers stationed in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy, and Japan. Since January, their schools have systemically removed books, altered curricula, and canceled events that the government has accused of promoting “gender ideology” or “divisive equity ideology.” This has included materials about slavery, Native American history, LGBTQ identities and history, and preventing sexual harassment and abuse, as well as portions of the Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology curriculum.

“Learning is a sacred and foundational right that is now being limited for students in DoDEA schools,” said Natalie Tolley, a plaintiff on behalf of her three children in DoDEA schools. “The implementation of these EOs, without any due process or parental or professional input, is a violation of our children's right to access information that prevents them from learning about their own histories, bodies, and identities. I have three daughters, and they, like all children, deserve access to books that both mirror their own life experiences and that act as windows that expose them to greater diversity. The administration has now made that verboten in DoDEA schools.”

In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed three executive orders which led to these removals: Executive Order (EO) 14168 titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”; EO 14185 titled “Restoring America’s Fighting Force”; and EO 14190 titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The suit names Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and administrators of the DoDEA system, arguing that by revoking students’ access to books and curricula about race and gender, defendants are harming students’ First Amendment right to receive information.

“Students in DoDEA schools, though they are members of military families, have the same First Amendment rights as all students,” said Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “Like everyone else, they deserve classrooms where they are free to read, speak, and learn about themselves, their neighbors, and the world around them. These schools are some of the most diverse and high achieving in the nation, making it particularly insulting to strip their shelves of diverse books and erase women, LGBTQ people, and people of color from the curriculum to serve a political goal. Our clients deserve better, and the First Amendment demands it.”

The Department of Defense has also prohibited cultural awareness months, including Black History Month, Pride Month, Women’s History Month, and National Hispanic Heritage Month. Schools have also released guidance for yearbooks to prohibit students from using them to promote “gender ideology” or “social transition.” Books banned within some DoDEA schools have reportedly included “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini; “Freckleface Strawberry” by Julianne Moore; “Hillbilly Elegy” by Vice President JD Vance; “The Antiracist Kid” by Tiffany Jewell; and a preparation guide for the AP Psychology exam.

“By quarantining library books and whitewashing curricula in its civilian schools, the Department of Defense Education Activity is violating students’ First Amendment rights,” said Matt Callahan, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU of Virginia. “The government can’t scrub references to race and gender from public school libraries and classrooms just because the Trump administration doesn’t like certain viewpoints on those topics.”

“Our clients have a right to receive an education that includes an open and honest dialogue about America’s history,” said Corey Shapiro, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky. “Censoring books and canceling assignments about the contributions of Black Americans is not only wrong, but antithetical to our First Amendment rights.”

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia, and the ACLU of Kentucky.

The complaint can be viewed here: https://www.aclu-ky.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/ek_v_dodea_-_2025.04.15_ecf_001_-_complaint.pdf

The labor movement and allies announced the formation of Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network today, a new project to connect federal workers whose rights have been violated by the Trump administration with free legal support.

Since January, thousands of federal workers have been abruptly fired and thrown out of jobs their families and communities rely on. They have an urgent need for legal support, which will only escalate throughout the spring as “reduction in force” plans go into effect. Federal workers’ unions and allied organizations are already fighting back in court, but thousands of federal workers still need individual legal advice and representation. Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network will mobilize and train thousands of lawyers to provide pro bono legal guidance to federal workers.

“Attacks on federal workers are attacks on all workers and on the essential services that our communities rely on daily,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO. “Getting these workers the justice they deserve in the face of this onslaught will take all of us. I’m so proud to announce the formation of Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network with our partners today. This new network is a critical tool empowering federal workers to fight back. When we come together, we are stronger than any of us alone.”

The Legal Defense Network is powered by the AFL-CIO and We The Action with Democracy Forward, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM), National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Constitution Society (ACS), the Partnership for Public Service, and others.

“This is a moment for lawyers to support the federal workers who serve us all,” said Anna Chu, executive director of We The Action. “We The Action was founded on the fundamental premise that lawyers have the power to do good. At a moment when our federal workforce is under attack, lawyers are uniquely positioned to take action. We’re honored to power the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network and mobilize our community of volunteer lawyers to help federal workers get the justice they deserve.”

“Our nation’s civil servants are the backbone of our democracy—and they’re under attack for doing their jobs. Democracy Forward is committed to working alongside partners to defend these workers and the public institutions they serve,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which launched Civil Service Strong in the wake of the Trump inauguration. “The Rise Up Network will build on existing efforts to ensure federal workers have the legal support they need to fight back, continue to serve the American people and our Constitution, and support our communities.”

“AFGE is proud to partner together with allies across the nation to ensure patriotic American civil servants under relentless attack by this administration have access to the legal resources they need,” said Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president.

“It is critical that federal workers have access to legal recourse as the Trump administration threatens and unlawfully terminates hundreds of thousands of proud civil servants,” said Randy Erwin, NFFE-IAM’s national president. “We are incredibly grateful for the attorneys and allies in our communities who stand with federal workers delivering essential services to the American people.”

“The Federal Workers Legal Defense Network is a welcome resource for federal employees whose careers and livelihoods are impacted by the administration’s attack on the federal workforce,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald. “NTEU applauds the thousands of attorneys across the nation willing to volunteer their time to advocate on behalf of career civil servants. Programs like this demonstrate a basic truth about the federal workforce: Civil servants, the work they do and the services they provide, matter deeply to this country and American taxpayers. We’re proud to partner with the AFL-CIO, We The Action, and our other allies on this critical tool to advocate on behalf of those who swore an oath to the Constitution.”

“As this current administration continues to lead with lawlessness and cruelty, there’s a need for humanity and action to assist the people being affected. We are proud of lawyers in the ACS network and beyond who are stepping up to meet this moment for federal workers across the country through this critical network,” said Zinelle October, American Constitution Society’s interim president.

“Labor rights are civil rights and workers deserve dignity and fairness, including federal workers who serve us all,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The Leadership Conference, a coalition of more than 240 diverse national organizations, is dedicated to protecting, advocating for, and enforcing civil rights for everyone. We will not remain silent, and we will not stand by while this administration—or anyone else—violates the civil and constitutional rights of the people who keep our communities and our country functioning.”

For more information on Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, visit workerslegaldefense.org.

Federal workers looking for legal support can begin the process here.
Lawyers interested in joining the Legal Defense Network can sign up here.

Today, the Solidarity Center, Global March Against Child Labour, and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Labor’s unlawful termination of congressionally-authorized international labor rights programs.

For decades, Congress has appropriated money for grants to support workers’ rights programs around the world through the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB). These longstanding, bipartisan programs are the backbone of U.S. efforts to uphold labor standards in global trade, combat child and forced labor, and protect American and global workers and businesses from unfair competition.

The Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based nonprofit labor organization, had support for all 11 of its ILAB-funded projects terminated – totaling nearly $80 million. These programs, implemented in more than 15 countries, have supported workers organizing for better wages, enforcing safety standards and holding trade partners accountable under agreements like the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The termination of Global March Against Child Labour’s single largest grant will impact around 40,000-50,000 children in Uganda, Peru, and Nepal as its implementing partners’ program developing child labor free municipalities cooperating with national governments has halted. The result will be tens of thousands of children out of school and a stoppage of preventive community work within supply chains like coffee production — even though these supply chains are crucial for US companies’ imports.

“Programs like those run by our clients, which promote stronger labor standards and better working conditions worldwide, are both critical from a human rights standpoint and necessary to ensure that American companies and workers aren’t undercut in the global marketplace,” said Stephanie Garlock, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel in this case. “Congress required the Department of Labor to fund these crucial programs. The Secretary of Labor has no authority to refuse to do so.”

“This case is about more than funding – it’s about protecting workers and enforcing the law. For over 25 years, the Solidarity Center has partnered with local unions to defend labor standards and fight exploitation that drives down wages and working conditions everywhere — including in the U.S. These programs are essential to fair trade and to ensuring workers have a voice on the job, from Honduras to Ohio,” said Shawna Bader-Blau, Executive Director of the Solidarity Center.

More information on the lawsuit is available on our website. The complaint can be found in full here.

Today, Greenpeace USA condemned Impossible Metals’ application for a deep-sea mining lease off the coast of American Samoa, in U.S. federal waters, calling it a reckless and desperate attempt to prop up a speculative and struggling industry by exploiting one of Earth’s most fragile and least understood ecosystems.

Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA Oceans are Life Campaign Lead said: “Opening up the U.S. seabed to deep sea mining runs counter to the long history of leadership in ocean stewardship set by the United States. It’s a destructive act of violence against ocean ecosystems and the Pacific communities whose culture is so closely linked to the deep ocean.”

A Desperate Power Grab by an UnprovenIndustry

Impossible Metals’ application for a deep-sea mining lease in U.S. federal waters is not a sign of industry momentum—it’s a glaring red flag of desperation. The move comes on the heels of a cascade of failures across the deep-sea mining sector that reveal the fundamental instability of the industry.

In February 2025, Impossible Metals itself was forced to postpone its highly publicized 2026 mining test in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, citing that its technology “isn’t ready.” Just weeks later, in March, Loke Marine Minerals, a Norwegian firm once poised to become the world’s largest deep-sea mining operator, filed for bankruptcy—an event that sent shockwaves through investor circles and exposed the financial fragility of the entire sector.

That same month, The Metals Company (TMC) stunned international observers by announcing it would sidestep the United Nations’ regulatory process—governed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA)—and seek a U.S. mining license under the little-known and long-dormant Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA). The announcement raised serious concerns about regulatory breakdowns and attempts to fast-track exploitation while global safeguards remain unresolved.

Adding to the pressure, in July 2024, American Samoa became the first U.S. territory to enact a moratorium on deep-sea mining, citing threats to marine life, cultural heritage, and the territory’s tuna fishery—the cornerstone of its economy. Greenpeace USA applauded this historic decision, calling it a bold act of ocean stewardship and a model for U.S. policy. That Impossible Metals would now seek a lease in federal waters adjacent to a territory that has explicitly rejected deep-sea mining is not only tone-deaf, but a profound sign of disrespect to Pacific communities and their right to self-determination.

In this context, Impossible Metals’ federal lease bid is less a step forward and more a scramble for relevance—an attempt to salvage investor confidence and secure regulatory footholds while public scrutiny and scientific warnings grow louder.

Solomon Kaho’Ohalahala, Hawaiian elder with the Maui Nui Makai Network said: “In July of last year, American Samoa decided that deep sea mining is not in their territorial interests—including the potential to impact tuna fisheries, currently their territory’s primary economic driver.

The Pacific has spoken clearly: our ocean is not a sacrifice zone. American Samoa’s moratorium reflects a deep cultural, ecological, and economic understanding of what’s at stake. For Impossible Metals to pursue a mining license just beyond those protected waters is not only reckless—it’s a betrayal of the values and sovereignty of Pacific Peoples. We as people of the Pacific do not recognize lines in the ocean drawn by Western governments. The fish can't see those lines, we don't see those lines. All of the Pacific is sacred. The U.S. government must respect the sovereignty and autonomy of Pacific Peoples and let them make decisions for their own waters, and reject any application that threatens our ocean and our way of life.”

No Science, No Safeguards, No Justification

The scientific community remains united: we lack the knowledge to mine the deep sea safely. Over 90% of species in areas like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone remain undescribed. Ecological processes, such as nutrient cycling and newly discovered phenomena like “dark oxygen” production, are only beginning to be understood. There is no adequate environmental baseline, no long-term impact data, and no way to manage what we don’t yet comprehend.

Furthermore, most current “research” is industry-led and profit-driven, not the result of independent, precautionary science. This push for premature mining risks sacrificing biodiversity for short-term speculative gains.

Call for a Moratorium

Greenpeace stands with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, Indigenous communities, scientists, and governments around the world calling for an immediate moratorium on deep-sea mining. Given the irreversible risks and profound scientific uncertainty, deep-sea mining must not move forward. The deep ocean should remain off-limits to mining—now and for the foreseeable future—until and unless independent science, robust global governance, and clear social consent can truly demonstrate that it can be done without harm.

As the 2025 tax filing season wraps up, Americans across the country are eager for the IRS to expand Direct File, a free, easy-to-use tool that allows taxpayers to file their taxes directly with the IRS. New polling from Groundwork Action and Data for Progress demonstrates this enthusiasm by revealing an overwhelming majority of voters across parties support expanding Direct File to all Americans.

Groundwork Collaborative Senior Fellow Kitty Richards released the following statement applauding the tool’s success and raising the alarm on the Trump Administration’s repeated attacks on the IRS:

“Direct File is a crystal clear example of government efficiency at work. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay exorbitant fees to predatory for-profit companies just to file their taxes. As cost-of-living remains top of mind for so many Americans, the government should invest in and expand tools like Direct File that put money back into the pockets of working families.

“Unfortunately, the president is waging a war against the IRS – and hamstringing vital taxpayer services like Direct File in the process – so his wealthy donors can cheat on their taxes. The only people who benefit from a weakened IRS are billionaires like Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

Just two weeks after the massive Hands Off! Mobilization brought millions to the streets, major climate groups—both national and grassroots—are teaming up with pro-democracy allies for “All Out on Earth Day,” a powerful wave of mobilizations from April 18–30 (centered on April 19) to confront rising authoritarianism and defend our environment, democracy, and future.

Key groups responsible for the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act including the Green New Deal Network and Sunrise Movement, Climate Power, Third Act, Center for Popular Democracy, the DNC Council on Environment and Climate, Climate Defenders, Unitarian Universalists, NAACP, Dayenu, Evergreen, the United to End Polluter Handouts Coalition, Climate Hawks Vote and the Center of Biological Adversity have all signed on to the mobilization. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to participate.

Three months into a Trump presidency and takeover in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency has faced massive rollbacks, millions of dollars in federal dollars for critical programs have been frozen, and federal workers have been unjustly fired. In response, the “All Out On Earth Day” mobilization will be rallying to:

• Defend Workers. Defend Democracy.
• Lower Costs for Communities — Stop Handouts for Corporations
• Make Polluters Pay. End the Welfare for Big Oil and Billionaires.

(See event host toolkit for more detailed demands)

Local groups like 350 Montana, Sunrise Huntington, Pass the Federal Green New Deal Coalition, 350 Wisconsin, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, 50501hi, Long Island Progressive Coalition will be hosting local rallies, teach-ins, and other events.

“This Earth Day, we fight for everything: for our communities, our democracy, and the future our children deserve. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are waging an all-out assault on the agencies that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our families healthy. They’re gutting the programs and projects we fought hard to win—programs that bring down energy costs and create good-paying jobs in towns across America, especially in red states. So, we need to make sure the pressure continues and our protests aren’t just a flash in the pan. When we stand together—workers, environmentalists, everyday folks—we can not only stop them, but we can build the world we deserve.”—Kaniela Ing, National Director of the Green New Deal Network

“The Americans who voted for Trump because of the price of eggs did not think they were choosing a future of fires, floods, hurricanes, and rising seas. The vast majority want a solar future, not a return to ‘beautiful’ coal. Earth Day will make that clear.”—Denis Hayes, Founder, Earth Day

“Fifty-five years ago, a massive turnout on the first Earth Day forced a corrupt Republican administration to pass the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and create the EPA; let’s do it again!”—Bill McKibben, Founder, Third Act

“Donald Trump is giving oil and gas billionaires the green light to wreck our planet and put millions of lives at risk, all so they can pad their bottom line. Just three months into the Trump presidency, the damage has already been catastrophic. Trump is dismantling critical environmental safeguards, putting lives at risk and leaving working people to suffer the devastating consequences. This Earth Day, we stand united in defiance of their greed and fight for a future that prioritizes people and the planet over profits.”—Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director, Sunrise Movement

The Trump administration late last week reinstated a dangerous opinion under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act from the president’s first term that allows extractive energy industries to harm or kill migratory birds in the name of seeking energy dominance. The opinion on incidental take exempts industries from being held accountable for the unintentional, but foreseeable, killing of birds during industrial activities.

“Rolling back these kinds of protections for migratory birds such as snowy owls, red-winged blackbirds, and white pelicans will undoubtedly result in the deaths of tens of thousands of birds,” said Daniel Moss, senior government relations representative at Defenders of Wildlife. “This action is particularly egregious as we approach the 15th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion which resulted in catastrophic mortality rates for sea birds. Only thanks to the MBTA, BP was forced to pay $100 million in fines. Weakening this law by giving businesses a free pass to do harm is the exact opposite of what our government should be doing.”

In 2020, the Southern District of New York declared the first Trump administration’s attempt to strip the MBTA of incidental take protections illegal, upholding the long-standing previous interpretation of the law.

Scientists estimate three billion birds have been lost across North America since 1970.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump called on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to strip CBS of its broadcast license. Trump issued this order following a 60 Minutes interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a second segment on the fate of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory Trump wants to seize for the United States.

According to the president, Carr “will impose the maximum fines and punishment” for segments that presented more than one side of prominent news stories. Although the FCC does have the authority to issue and deny broadcast licenses, it generally abstains — on First Amendment grounds — from doing so based on the editorial decisions of broadcast outlets.

In March, Free Press called on the FCC to once again dismiss a pro-Trump group’s complaint that accuses local broadcaster WCBS-TV of “news distortion” in airing a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Free Press disputed the merits of the complaint and explained how the agency’s decision to set aside its dismissal and reconsider it falls within FCC Chairman Carr’s broader portfolio of anti-First Amendment actions.

Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said:

“Trump is weaponizing the FCC to attack First Amendment freedoms and threaten free speech. Unfortunately, FCC Chairman Carr has been all too happy to comply and has repeatedly abused his licensing authority to punish any broadcaster that critically covers this president and his political agenda.

“We’re now waiting for the other shoe to drop — for Carr to once again twist himself into a legal pretzel to appease his boss and launch yet another blatantly unconstitutional attack on free speech.

“The irony in all of this is that 60 Minutes’ supposed crime, in the eyes of Trump, is committing an act of journalism. I encourage anyone who watches Sunday’s Zelenskyy interview to see how it meets any of the FCC’s criteria for license denial. It doesn't. I strongly encourage the FCC chairman to stop embarrassing himself, to reject the president’s call to violate his oath of office and the Constitution, and to stand against government censorship. I doubt Carr will.”

The following is a statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, reacting to the details and implications of today’s White House Oval Office meeting between President Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele:

“What we saw today at the White House should shock every American who cares about our system of checks and balances and the rule of law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been clear that Mr. Kilmar García should be brought back to his family in Maryland. Yet, today, President Trump said they have no plans to abide by the Court’s ruling and return a man that President Trump's own Department of Justice acknowledges was mistakenly deported.

Even more disturbing, during today’s meeting, Trump acknowledged his plan to send U.S. citizens to El Salvador's prisons.

All of this is a reminder why immigration is the tip of the spear for Trump's larger assault on key pillars of our democracy and why what's at stake should alarm Americans of all political persuasions.”

Resources

• Read the America’s Voice statement ahead of today’s meeting: “Three Key Questions for President Trump & President Bukele”

Follow Vanessa Cárdenas and America’s Voice on BlueSky: vcardenas.bsky.social and americasvoice.bsky.social and Twitter: @VCardenasDC and @AmericasVoice

A group of environmental and science organizations, represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, today filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s removal of public information from climate and environmental justice federal agency websites.

The Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, and California Communities Against Toxics joined the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Within days of taking office, the Trump administration began deleting mentions of climate change from agency websites and taking a series of actions to undermine environmental justice efforts across the federal government, including closing climate and environmental justice offices.

The lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s removal of critical environmental justice tools like EJScreen and the Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool (CEJST). Until the deletion, both websites were widely used by regulators, academics, and advocates to identify communities that are disproportionately affected by pollution and climate change. The vital tools also track burdens related to climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, and workforce development.

In addition, the lawsuit challenges the removal of other important environmental, climate, and energy justice tools, including the Department of Energy’s Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool and Community Benefits Plan Map; the Department of Transportation’s Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Future Risk Index.

Researchers and many nonprofit organizations regularly use these tools to educate and advocate for policies or agency actions that would address the disproportionate harm overburdened communities bear, for everything from reports on proposed gas pipeline projects, disproportionate energy burdens in states like Texas or Louisiana, long-form reporting on the environmental impacts of online retail shipping practices, Environmental Integrity Project’s oil and gas operations tracker, and the Sierra Club’s LNG tracker.

“The agencies’ actions represent an attempt to sell out the health of Americans and the environment, and also to deny access to the information that allows people to advocate for change,” said Zach Shelley, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for the groups. “These resources were developed for public use, and the government has a duty to keep them available. Stripping the public’s access to these resources is part of an unlawful attempt to undermine key environmental protections.”
“Removing public information from websites creates dangerous gaps in the data available to communities and decisionmakers about health risks from industrial pollution,” said Jen Duggan, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. “Pulling down EJScreen from the web obscures the real impact of toxic releases on low-income communities and communities of color from big polluters like oil, gas, and petrochemical operations, which is pretty ironic coming from an administration that claims to champion transparency.”

“The removal of these websites and the critical data they hold is yet another direct attack on the communities already suffering under the weight of deadly air and water,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous. “Simply put, these data and tools save lives, and efforts to delete, unpublish, or in any way remove them jeopardize peoples’ ability to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live safe and healthy lives. The Trump administration must end its efforts to further disenfranchise and endanger these communities.”

“The public has a right to access these taxpayer-funded datasets,” said UCS President Gretchen Goldman. “From vital information for communities about their exposure to harmful pollution, to data that help local governments build resilience to extreme weather events, the public deserves access to federal datasets. Removing government datasets is tantamount to theft.”

“We cannot just erase the impacts that pollution is having on communities hosting our industrial infrastructure," said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. "This pollution is causing increases in asthma, COPD, low birthweight, and earlier death. Understanding these impacts allows us to reduce pollution, and protect public health. These are essential tenets of a healthy society, and the information being disappeared by this Administration is essential to protect the public from these adverse health impacts.”

The Trump administration's second-term attacks on protections for clean air and clean water standards have been relentless. A series of executive orders last week would attempt to keep uneconomic coal power plants running and push a dramatic expansion of coal mining on public lands. An additional Trump order attempts to direct some government agencies to incorporate a sunset provision into their regulations governing energy production, undermining or negating key environmental and safety safeguards currently in place. And last month, Trump’s EPA announced a plan to roll back or revoke more than 30 critical environmental safeguards that help protect everything from safe drinking water to clean air.

The documents from this case can be found here. For additional information on the case, or to request an interview with the litigation team or our plaintiffs, contact Patrick Davis, pdavis@citizen.org.

Which is more astounding: That a right-wing yahoo got into and set ablaze the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his wife and four kids, or that an orange madman - who assails both those who vandalize cars and those who oppose killing brown children as "domestic terrorists" - stayed silent on the attempted murder of a Jewish governor's family while vowing to "look to Christ's love" (even) in life’s most difficult moments," presumably like when your house is burning down. Tough call.

In a Sunday press conference, officials said Gov. Shapiro and his family were evacuated early that morning after an apparent arson attack that caused "a significant amount of damage" to the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg. Shapiro posted that he and his family were asleep at about 2 a.m. when they were awakened by state police and fire officials banging on their door. The fire struck the part of the residence where, hours before, the family had held a Seder dinner to mark the first night of Passover; Shapiro posted a photo wishing, "Happy Passover From the Shapiro family's Seder table to yours." The family was asleep in a different area, and they all escaped uninjured.

By Sunday night, officials announced they'd captured a suspect, Cody Balmer, 38; they said a "methodical" Balmer "targeted" the home, evaded troopers on duty, jumped a fence and got inside long enough to toss a "home-made incendiary device." According to news reports and a social media trail, Balmer has a criminal record; what is evidently his Facebook page reveals hatred for women and Biden - "Biden supporters shouldn't exist" - a fondness for guns, and support for Trump because gas was cheaper under his reign. While the investigation is ongoing, officials say they expect charges against Balmer to include attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault on an enumerated person.

The attack comes amidst rising political violence that's regularly denounced by politicians including Shapiro - "It is not okay, and it has to stop" - and yet both tacitly and brazenly fomented, since the days of "good people on both sides," by a complicit Mobster-In-Chief; says one sage, "Trump's fingerprints are all over this." Critics note that Trump and Attorney General Blondie Bondi have been quick to condemn any small actions of good will they disagree with - from protesting or vandalizing Teslas to speaking up on college campuses against starving or killing children in Gaza - as "anti-Semitism," "hate crimes" and/or "domestic terrorism," all while amassing troops at the border and disappearing "criminal aliens" for seeking safety.

So it was that, even past midnight Sunday, the witch-hunted, hoax-targeted, anti-anti-Semitic guy who wants to "protect" America's women and white people and riches from "domestic terrorism" - while dismissing attacks on Gretchen Whitmer, Paul Pelosi, the seat of democracy itself - had still said not a word about some random bigot trying to burn a Jewish elected official and his family out of their home. Note to mob boss: The "terrorists" and "anti-Semites" are not the righteous students protesting the deaths of innocent Gazan women and children; they are the arsonists trying to burn families as they sleep on the first night of Passover, which celebrates liberation from oppression. Terror, here, resides in the jaundiced eye of the beholder.

Instead, in the kick-off for his new "Faith Office," Trump issued a Palm Sunday message, renewing his promise to "defend the Christian faith" against the "appalling" likes of (devout Catholic) Biden, who planned 2024's Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter as part of his "years-long assault on the Christian faith." Not so for our new Man of the Gospel who doesn't know any of it. "We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty," he wrote, calling on "Christ’s love, humility, and obedience." His White House has also promised "an extraordinary Holy Week" to honor Easter with "the observance it deserves." No details yet, but their plans reportedly include deporting several more college students for setting fire to Gov. Shapiro's home.

Balmer photo on Facebook pageFacebook

In a decision that appeared to be pre-written, an immigration judge ruled immediately after a hearing today that Mahmoud Khalil is removable under U.S. immigration law. This comes less than 48 hours after the U.S. government handed over the “evidence” they have on Mr. Khalil — which included nothing more than a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that made clear Mr. Khalil had not committed a crime and was being targeted solely based on his speech. He is not yet scheduled for deportation. The judge gave Mr. Khalil’s attorneys until April 23 to seek a waiver.

At the end of the hearing, Mahmoud Khalil asked to address the court, saying: “I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness. Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”

"Today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent. This is not over, and our fight continues,” said Marc van der Hout, founding partner of Van Der Hout, LLP. “If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes. We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community."

Despite this ruling, Mr. Khalil’s federal habeas case, which is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, will continue. On Friday, Judge Michael E. Farbiarz ordered both the government and Mr. Khalil’s legal team to immediately report to his court after the immigration hearing for an update on what transpired.

At the federal court level, Mr. Khalil’s legal team will continue to seek bail, as well as a preliminary injunction (PI) that would immediately release him from custody and allow him to reunite with his family in New York while his immigration case proceeds. If granted, the PI would also block President Trump’s policy of arresting and detaining noncitizens who have engaged in First Amendment protected activity in support of Palestinian rights.

On March 8, the Trump administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) illegally arrested and detained Mr. Khalil in direct retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights at Columbia University. Shortly after, DHS transferred him 1,400 miles away to a Louisiana detention facility — ripping him away from his wife and legal counsel. His legal team is arguing that his arrest and continued detention violate his constitutional rights, including rights to free speech and due process, and that they go beyond the government’s legal authority.

Mr. Khalil is represented by Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, CLEAR, Van Der Hout LLP, Washington Square Legal Services, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ACLU of New Jersey, and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The following are quotes from the rest of Mr. Khalil’s legal team:

“The fight to bring Mahmoud home is far from over,” said Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We will continue undeterred to press for his release after this startling escalation of the Trump administration’s war on dissent. We will fiercely defend his and others’ right to speak freely about Palestine or any other issue without fear of detention and deportation.”

“This is egregious overreach by the US government,” said Amy Greer, associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis. “Every single person in this country has the right to speak out against issues that matter to them — and I fear that this decision will embolden the Trump administration to target other vulnerable people who are simply speaking out for Palestinian human rights and against an ongoing genocide. We have fought for Mahmoud’s release every single day since he was detained. We will continue to do so until he is home with his family.”

“Today’s ruling is a rush to judgement on baseless charges that the government presented no evidence to substantiate because no evidence exists. Our client, Mr. Khalil, has been unlawfully detained in direct retaliation of his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights, and as a result has been separated from Dr. Noor Abdalla, his wife, who is now nine months pregnant. This finding of removability is a dangerous departure from the fundamental freedoms at the bedrock of our nation that protect free speech under the First Amendment. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Khalil’s rightful release, and we are confident he will prevail,” said Amol Sinha, Executive Director of the ACLU-NJ.

“The determination today simply rubber stamped the Trump Administration’s efforts to punish speech that they disagree with and did not address the clear constitutional concerns raised by his arrest, detention, and the application of the foreign policy bar. But the fight to get Mahmoud home isn’t over. We will keep fighting to get Mahmoud back to his nine-month pregnant wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, and vindicate his rights with our habeas and preliminary injunction action in New Jersey,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU.

“Today, reading from a pre-written decision, an immigration judge rubber-stamped a shameful determination by Secretary of State Rubio stating that one’s beliefs can lead to deportation. We should all be deeply concerned,” said Diala Shamas, senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We will continue to stand alongside Mahmoud in his fight to come home to Noor, and in his determination to keep speaking out for Palestinian freedom. This is just the beginning.”