Birthright citizenship is personal to me
Say It Louder
Abdi Soltani is the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California.
In a barrage of attacks on immigration on his first day back in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order purporting to revoke birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment guarantee that every baby born in the United States is a citizen.
The backlash to Trump’s executive order was swift. The ACLU, immigrants’ rights advocates, and 22 states immediately sued the Trump administration on the grounds that the order violates the Constitution. Within days, a federal judge temporarily blocked the order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
This right is personal for me. I was born in Los Angeles to parents who were Iranian citizens. I returned with my parents to Iran soon after my birth, where I lived until the Iranian revolution. We immigrated to the U.S. when I was nine years old. Even as a young child, I knew I was a U.S. citizen, for which I have always been grateful.
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Maria Elena Cruz becomes the first Latina + Black justice on the Arizona Supreme Court
More Of This
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Maria Elena Cruz to the Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday, making the state appellate judge from rural Yuma County the first Latina and first Black person chosen for the state’s high court.
Hobbs’ selection of Cruz marks the first Supreme Court appointment by a Democratic governor since 2005. It also broadens the racial, geographic and political diversity of the seven-member, Republican-dominated court.
“I prioritized an appointee who is not only eminently qualified but also someone who reflects our state and who is committed to making our legal system work for everyday people,” Hobbs said during a news conference to announce her choice. “Of course, I was focused on credentials and experience but also on appointing a justice who will uplift those who need it most.”
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The next MAGA judges will be so much worse
Less Of This
Donald Trump re-made the federal judiciary between 2017 and 2021. His 234 nominees confirmed to the federal bench include judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk, Aileen Cannon, James Ho, and others who have become notorious for the lengths to which they’ll go to advance Trump’s personal and political agenda. They also include three Supreme Court justices, who voted to end federal protections for abortion, gut affirmative action, lay the groundwork to undo the regulatory state, and make the president a king. Trump’s judges were overwhelmingly white, male, young, and ideologically extreme. Many were hand-selected by the Federalist Society because of their fealty to the conservative legal project.
And if Trump gets his way, his first term’s impact on the judiciary will be just a warm-up act. Over the coming months and years, Trump is likely to fill the federal bench with radical, far-right lawyers dedicated not to the law, but to advancing his quest for unchecked and unmoderated power.
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SCOTUS could force government to fund religious public schools
Speaking Of...
The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will hear two cases that are likely to revolutionize the relationship between church and state, at least in the context of public schools.
Both cases, known as Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, seek to force state governments to pay for religious public schools. They involve a planned public charter school in Oklahoma, which will be run by two Catholic dioceses. According to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the school, known as St. Isidore, says it will “derive ‘its original characteristics and its structure as a genuine instrument of the church’ and participate ‘in the evangelizing mission of the church.’”
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