ACLU fights to restore woke books Trump banned to protect military kids from gender ideology



The American Civil Liberties Union announced Tuesday that it filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense's school system for removing books that reference "race and gender" from its libraries.

President Donald Trump previously signed executive actions banning diversity, equity, and inclusion from the federal government, resulting in the removal of woke gender ideology books from the Department of Defense Education Activity's schools.

'I assume the ACLU will now support school choice for military families, so the federal government won't get to dictate what is or is not in military kids' education.'

A presidential action titled "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling" argued that the American school system has "indoctrinate[d]" students with "radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight."

In February, the DOD distributed a memo to parents of children within the school system explaining that the agency was reevaluating library books "potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics."

The DOD and the Department of Education released a joint statement earlier this month announcing the creation of the Title IX Special Investigations Team, tasked with protecting students "from the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities."

The ACLU's lawsuit, filed on behalf of a dozen students, accuses the DODEA of violating students' First Amendment rights by removing the materials.

"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,'" the ACLU claimed. "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."

Natalie Tolley, a parent with three children in DODEA schools, stated that Trump's executive orders were "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," she continued. "The administration has now made that verboten in DODEA schools."

Neal McCluskey, the director of the Cato Institute's Center for Education Freedom, reacted to the lawsuit, stating, "I assume the ACLU will now support school choice for military families, so the federal government won't get to dictate what is or is not in military kids' education."

A spokesperson for the DODEA told the Associated Press that the school system does not comment on ongoing litigation.

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Protecting Terrorists Is Just The Latest Of Judge Boasberg’s Partisan Activism

An activist judge in Washington, D.C. tried to prevent Trump from deporting designated terrorists from U.S.

Trump admin axes first student visa over pro-Hamas protest crimes: State Department



The Trump administration's State Department confirmed that it revoked its first student visa over alleged criminal activity tied to a pro-Hamas protest.

The State Department told Fox News the foreign student was involved in a disruptive college campus demonstration. However, it did not reveal the student's identity or which school he or she attended, citing "legal constraints."

'Zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists.'

"Yesterday evening, we revoked the first visa of an alien who was previously cited for criminal behavior in connection with Hamas-supporting disruptions," the department said. "This individual was a university student. [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will proceed with removing this person from the country."

The State Department's move comes on the heels of President Donald Trump stating that foreign students participating in pro-Hamas protests should have their visas pulled for supporting the terrorist group.

In January, Trump vowed to "deport Hamas sympathizers and revoke student visas" to combat anti-Semitism.

"To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before," he stated.

Despite many disruptive pro-Hamas protests on college campuses under the previous administration, President Joe Biden's State Department did not revoke any of the 100,000 student visas it reviewed, an official told Axios.

The Trump administration accused Biden of "turn[ing] a blind eye to this coordinated assault on public order" and "refus[ing] to protect the civil rights of Jewish Americans, especially students."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this week that the department will launch an AI-powered "Catch and Revoke" system to yank the visas of those supporting terrorist organizations, such as Hamas.

On Thursday, Rubio wrote in a post on X, "Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation."

The State Department told Axios, "It would be negligent for the department that takes national security seriously to ignore publicly available information about [visa] applicants in terms of AI tools. ... AI is one of the resources available to the government that's very different from where we were technologically decades ago."

Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote an open letter to colleges and universities claiming that the Trump administration is attempting to pressure school officials into "censoring and punishing non-citizen scholars and students for their speech and scholarship." The ACLU urged American colleges "to protect campus speech."

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ACLU misleads on illegal aliens at GITMO, ignoring ‘high-threat’ status



The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week against the Trump administration, misleading and downplaying the "high-threat" status of illegal aliens detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

On Wednesday, the ACLU issued a press release announcing that it filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of several immigrant advocacy groups. Eucaris Carolina Gomez Lugo, the sister of one detainee, also joined in the lawsuit. Her brother is accused of being a member of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Other family members of the detainees are also part of the legal action.

'They should change their name.'

The ACLU stated that the lawsuit aimed to allow the immigrant advocacy groups "to meet with the people being detained in order to provide them with legal assistance." It claimed that the Trump administration had "hurr[ied] immigrants off to a remote island cut off from lawyers, family, and the rest of the world."

The lawsuit estimated that the administration has detained more than 50 illegal aliens at GITMO since February 4. It accused the administration of attempting to "thwart access to counsel for immigrant detainees."

"For the first time in U.S. history, the federal government has moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the United States on civil immigration charges to the Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba," it read. "And it is holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world."

However, according to a press release from the Department of Defense, those recently detained at GITMO are “high-priority criminal aliens.” The DOD referred to the individuals as “high-threat,” noting that they are “currently being housed in vacant detention facilities.”

Further, the lawsuit’s use of the phrase "for the first time in U.S. history" is similarly misleading. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also authorized detaining illegal aliens at GITMO.

In response to the lawsuit, Trump's Department of Homeland Security not only denied the ACLU's claims but also sharply criticized the organization.

A DHS official told the New York Post, "There is a system for phone utilization to reach lawyers."

According to the DHS, detainees do have the ability to contact legal representation.

"If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murderers & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name," the DHS official remarked.

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Trump admin stands firm on ending birthright citizenship amid left's legal challenges



President Donald Trump kicked off his second term on Monday by signing several executive actions aimed at addressing the nation's ongoing illegal immigration crisis, including an order to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens.

The executive order, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," argued that "the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States" if those individuals' parents were illegally in the country or not lawful permanent residents at the time of their birth.

'These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the left's resistance.'

Shortly after Trump signed the executive order, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the administration, arguing that the action was unconstitutional.

The ACLU stated that birthright citizenship is protected under the 14th Amendment, which states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The organization further cited that the amendment, ratified in 1868, was confirmed in 1898 by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. The ACLU noted that according to the court's ruling, children born in the U.S. are citizens regardless of their parents' immigration status.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said, "Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it's also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values."

"Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is," Romero continued. "This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration's overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail."

The New York Times reported Tuesday that attorneys general from 18 states sued Trump to block the executive order. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., also joined the legal action against the president.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin called the action "a flagrant violation of our Constitution."

Trump's order seeks to clarify the 14th Amendment, stating that it "has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States." Instead, the action asserts that children with noncitizen parents are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.

The Trump administration anticipated legal challenges concerning the executive order.

Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News Digital, "Radical leftists can either choose to swim against the tide and reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can get on board and work with President Trump to advance his wildly popular agenda."

"These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the left's resistance — and the Trump administration is ready to face them in court," Fields said.

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Nebraska Supreme Court Allows Radical Unlimited Abortion Amendment To Make November Ballot

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-13-at-10.31.32 AM-e1726241523710-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-13-at-10.31.32%5Cu202fAM-e1726241523710-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]A majority of Nebraskans say they oppose legalizing abortion through birth, something the 'Protect the Right to Abortion' ballot initiative seeks to do.

Blaze News original: Biden's 'smoke and mirrors' executive order won't curb illegal crossings, experts warn: 'A purely political play'



On June 4, President Joe Biden released a new executive order that the administration claimed would crack down on the influx of illegal aliens crossing the border, despite previously insisting that his hands were tied regarding the immigration crisis.

Border security and immigration experts told Blaze News that the administration's executive action will do very little, if anything, to actually reduce the number of illegal crossings into the United States.

About the order

The White House's executive order would only temporarily take effect if the number of illegal immigrants averages 2,500 over a seven-day period. The order also contains many exceptions, including for unaccompanied minors, those experiencing medical emergencies, and victims of a "severe form" of trafficking.

Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News, "Coming three and a half years, and nearly 10 million illegal arrivals into Biden's term, this order is a purely political play. This isn't shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. It's closing the barn door half an inch, while inviting more horses into the barn so they can bolt too."

"Biden's belated and feckless executive action won't discourage anyone from coming illegally," he continued. "As long as they know from social media, smugglers, and friends that they'll almost certainly be released on arrival, people from 180 countries will keep on coming. As the daily crossing numbers and reporters at the border show, this 63-page executive action, riddled with exceptions, and without the will to enforce even its mild provisions, is having no demonstrable effect."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas outlined the details of the order during a recent interview with ABC News' "Start Here" podcast.

'Asylum is very much still alive.'

"Individuals encountered in between the ports of entry at our southern border will be barred from seeking asylum," Mayorkas explained. However, he went on to note, "The way in which they can seek asylum now, with this order in effect, is by using the CBP One app and making an appointment to arrive at a port of entry in a safe and orderly way, or accessing one of our many other lawful pathways that we have established for people to receive humanitarian relief without placing their lives in the hands of smugglers."

Customs and Border Protection's CBP One application allows foreign nationals to schedule appointments at ports of entry along the border to file an asylum claim.

Mayorkas reiterated that only illegal immigrants who attempt to cross the southern border outside of a port of entry could be barred from requesting asylum.

"If the number of people we encounter averages for seven consecutive calendar days less than 1,500, then we will lift this bar," Mayorkas continued, adding that the administration "can" and has "the right" to reinstitute the ban if the average number of encounters reaches 2,500 per day for seven consecutive days.

During the interview, Mayorkas commended the Biden administration for building additional "lawful pathways" for those seeking to claim asylum in the U.S.

"More than a million people have accessed those lawful pathways in the past year," he added. "Asylum is very much still alive, but we are deterring irregular migration in between the ports of entry and trying to cut out the smugglers."

Mayorkas acknowledged that the administration knew the American Civil Liberties Union planned to challenge the executive order's legality.

Conservative lawmakers have argued that the executive action lacks teeth, citing the narrow requirements that trigger its enforcement and the lengthy list of exceptions even once it is enforced.

John Fabbricatore, a retired Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver Field Office director and current Republican congressional candidate for Colorado's 6th District, told Blaze News that the order is "largely smoke and mirrors" that amounts "to a shell game."

"It doesn't genuinely address the problem of securing the border. There isn't a clear plan for detention, leading me to believe that the order won't stop the release of many illegal aliens into the interior. To me, this amounts to an indirect form of amnesty through intentional inaction," Fabbricatore remarked.

Biden blames Republicans

During the White House's announcement of the new executive action, the administration blamed Republican lawmakers for the open border crisis.

"Earlier this year, the President and his team reached a historic bipartisan agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans to deliver the most consequential reforms of America's immigration laws in decades," the administration claimed. "But Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades."

Hankinson told Blaze News that the Secure the Border Act, H.R. 2, was "real legislation that would have restored sanity at the border."

"The Democrat-controlled Senate has refused to vote on the bill. The Senate 'bipartisan' bill that came out in February was mere water to HR2's wine. It locked crisis levels of illegal migration into law, failed to stop Biden's mass abuse of parole, failed to curb asylum fraud or the use of children to avoid immigration detention, and granted extraordinary discretion to an administration that has shown itself unworthy of it," Hankinson explained.

"The Senate bill also fed the United Nations-NGO beast that is encouraging and paying for millions of people to migrate illegally towards the United States," he continued. "Biden has tried to convince voters that the Senate bill was tough, but any objective analysis shows the opposite. Again, pure politics. Meanwhile, Biden refuses to uphold the rule of law by ignoring statutes already on the books that require detention of all foreigners entering the U.S. illegally, and granting mass parole in violation of the law's clear intent."

Jon Feere, director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies, echoed a similar sentiment regarding the stalled Secure the Border Act, calling it the only "border-related bill that would begin to reverse the Biden administration's lawlessness."

Feere told Blaze News, "The Biden administration does not want it to become law, an obvious sign that they have no interest in actually securing the border."

"Everything the Biden administration has done on immigration has been explicitly designed to undermine enforcement of the nation's immigration laws and the result has been an unprecedented explosion in illegal immigration," Feere continued. "In order to put an end to the lawlessness, the Executive Branch would have to dramatically ramp up arrests and deportations of illegal aliens and invoke serious consequences for border-crossers and companies that hire them. This proclamation does nothing to discourage illegal immigration, and the chaos will continue."

What will the executive order actually accomplish?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently argued that the Biden administration's executive action will "attract and invite" more illegal immigrants to cross the southern border.

He told Fox News, "This is gaslighting our fellow Americans. When Biden gets up and says, 'This is going to stop people from coming across the border,' when he says, 'It's going to secure the border,' in fact, it is making illegal border crossings worse."

Fabbricatore told Blaze News that he agrees with Abbott, stating that the order "will encourage more illegal crossings."

'A significant vetting and national security failure.'

"Evidence of this can already be seen along the border. I predict we will see even more mass crossings before the November election," he remarked. "I don't see any positive effects from this executive order on the current border crisis. It seems more like a political move that President Biden needed to make before the election rather than a solution to the problem. Fraudulent asylum claims, of which less than 15% are eventually approved, continue to rise, reaching nearly 500,000 claims in 2023. The order doesn't address the limited detention space, and recent announcements about closing the Dilley Immigration Detention Center only worsen the issue by eliminating over 1,000 beds."

Fabbricatore explained that even if the number of encounters drops to the executive order's 1,500 daily threshold, Border Patrol agents will still be unable to keep up.

"In a 2019 interview, former Obama administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson stated that 1,000 apprehensions a day constituted a crisis. This remains true today. Under the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents have been processing between 1,000 and 6,000 daily, which is unsustainable and represents a significant vetting and national security failure. The morale of the Border Patrol and ICE is extremely low, a condition deliberately caused by the Biden administration from day one," Fabbricatore told Blaze News.

What happens now?

As anticipated, on June 12, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its so-called "cruel" and restrictive executive order. The nonprofit, which filed the suit on behalf of two pro-immigration groups, claimed that the action "severely restricts asylum" and puts "thousands of lives at risk."

After announcing the executive action, the Biden administration's CBP released an internal memo to San Diego sector Border Patrol agents instructing them to release most illegal immigrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries into the U.S. The communication directed agents to provide the individuals with Notice to Appear documents and release them from custody on their own recognizance, an instruction that contradicted the administration's claim that it planned to crack down on unlawful entries.

In recent months, the San Diego area has been hit with a massive uptick in illegal immigration, with foreign nationals from all over the world attempting to unlawfully enter the country near the remote town of Jacumba Hot Springs.

San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told Blaze News, "This executive order is a facade, offering the illusion of security while doing nothing to address the real issues at our borders. This past weekend alone, thousands of individuals entered San Diego County, exacerbating the alarming number of over 151,000 street releases this fiscal year. This policy effectively allows anyone into the country, regardless of their background or intentions."

Fabbricatore warned that the Biden administration will likely increase the number of foreign nationals it processes through its CBP One app.

"In my opinion this seems like a deliberate action to bypass Congress and allow thousands more to enter the country. Over 80% of these asylum claims will likely be deemed not credible and dismissed. However, given that millions of final removal orders are already pending in the ICE system, the administration knows these individuals are unlikely to be deported," he told Blaze News.

With the country's immigration crisis a top concern for voters, it remains to be seen whether Biden's last-ditch effort to appear tough on unlawful crossings will earn him any additional votes. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem equally unimpressed with Biden's executive order.

'A blatant contradiction.'

Eighteen Democratic lawmakers, led by Reps. Delia Ramirez (Ill.) and Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), wrote a letter Tuesday to Mayorkas and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou, slamming the administration's executive action.

"Allowing the consideration of mandatory bars to asylum during initial asylum screening interviews will force asylum seekers to present legally and factually complex arguments explaining the life-threatening harms they are fleeing shortly after enduring a long, traumatic journey and while being held in immigration detention and essentially cut off from legal help," the letter read.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told Blaze News that the administration's executive order will not curb illegal immigration.

"The only way to end this self-inflicted border crisis is to end the perverse incentives that encourage mass illegal immigration," Green stated. "This executive order does not come close to doing that. In fact, it legitimizes crisis levels of illegal immigration, broadcasts to the cartels that they can continue to exploit vulnerable people, and allows Border Patrol agents to continue releasing illegal aliens into the interior if they don't claim asylum."

"The cartels know this order won't change anything on the ground, which is why we've seen reports for almost a week now that mass numbers of illegal aliens are still coming across, completely undeterred by this unserious administration. A true leader in the White House would admit his open-borders policies have failed, and use his executive authority to reimplement the policies that worked, and enforce the laws he swore to uphold," Green added.

Feere with CIS told Blaze News that Biden's attempt to appear tough on illegal immigration will not convince voters this November.

"Nothing the administration does now will make a difference," he declared. "In fact, it's only going to get worse as the fallout from their open border agenda impacts all aspects of our lives, from crime to school overcrowding, not to mention the terrorist threats the administration has welcomed into our country."

United States Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) told Blaze News that voters "see through this charade."

"For three years Biden has lied about the border crisis, dodged responsibility by blaming Congress, and now in a blatant contradiction issues a meaningless executive order months before Election Day," Gooden said.

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Wisconsin GOP Chairman Voices Concerns About Convention Amid Trump Derangement Syndrome

Leftists 'are happy to do anything to disrupt ... the possibility of Donald Trump becoming president,' Brian Schimming said.

ACLU files lawsuit over Biden's border executive order: 'Administration lacks unilateral authority'



The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Biden administration over its new executive order that the nonprofit claims would "categorically ban asylum based on where a noncitizen enters the country."

The Biden administration released the executive action on June 4, stating that it would crack down on the increase of illegal immigrants crossing the border. However, the order includes many exceptions that critics say prove it was only a political move that will do nothing to actually curb the ongoing border crisis.

'Anti-asylum policies are cruel, ineffective, and unlawfully undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum in the United States.'

The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of two pro-immigration groups, claims that the administration's action is "cruel" and "severely restricts asylum," putting "thousands of lives at risk."

"These executive actions will effectively shut off any access to asylum protections for the vast majority of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, no matter how strong their claims. The proclamation echoes the Trump administration's previous asylum entry ban, which immigrants' rights advocates successfully challenged," the ACLU said in a statement.

"We were left with no alternative but to sue. The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and bar asylum based on how one enters the country, a point the courts made crystal clear when the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried a near-identical ban," stated Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

According to the lawsuit, the administration "harmed" the immigration groups by enacting the order "without first providing notice and an opportunity to comment."

Biden's executive order only takes effect if the number of encounters at the southern border averages 2,500 per day or more over a seven-day period. At that point, illegal immigrants who attempt to cross into the U.S. not at a designated port of entry could be banned from making an asylum claim. However, the executive action carves out exceptions for unaccompanied minors, those experiencing medical emergencies, and victims of a "severe form" of trafficking.

The restrictions are lifted once the average daily crossings drop to 1,500 per day for seven consecutive days. If the number of border encounters increases again, the administration can choose to re-enact the restrictions.

When the Biden administration announced the executive action, Border Patrol averaged approximately 4,000 encounters per day.

Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, stated, "The Biden administration's actions effectively shut the door on countless individuals fleeing violence and persecution."

"Anti-asylum policies are cruel, ineffective, and unlawfully undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum in the United States," Spitzer added.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently said that the Biden administration anticipated that the ACLU would challenge the order.

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