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Texas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in classrooms
Court Updates |
2026/04/21 20:22
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Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into classrooms. The 9-8 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a boost to backers of similar laws in Arkansas and Louisiana. Opponents have argued that hanging the Ten Commandments in classrooms proselytizes to students and amounts to religious indoctrination by the government. In a lengthy majority opinion, the conservative-leaning appeals court in New Orleans rejected those arguments in Texas, saying the requirement does not step on the rights of parents or students. "No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin," the ruling says. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that challenged the Texas law on behalf of parents said in a statement that they anticipate appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. "The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights," they said in the statement. The mandate is one of several fronts in Texas that opponents have fought over religion in classrooms. In 2024, the state approved optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools, and a proposal set for a vote in June would add Bible stories to required reading lists in Texas classrooms. The decision over the Ten Commandments law reverses a lower federal court ruling that had blocked about a dozen Texas school districts — including some of the state's largest — from putting up the posters. The Texas law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott took effect in September, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools. From the start, the law was met almost immediately by a mix of embrace and hesitation in Texas classrooms that educate the state's 5.5 million public school students. The mandate animated school board meetings, spun up guidance about what to say when students ask questions, and led to boxes of donated posters being dropped on the doorsteps of campuses statewide. Although the law only requires schools to hang the posters if donated, one suburban Dallas school district spent nearly $1,800 to print roughly 5,000 posters. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling "a major victory for Texas and our moral values." "The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it's important that students learn from them every single day," he said. Tuesday's ruling comes after the appeals court heard arguments in January in the Texas case and a similar case in Louisiana. In February, the court cleared the way for Louisiana to enforce its law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the Texas ruling "adopted our entire legal defense" of the law in her state. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey also signed a similar law earlier this month. "Our law clearly was always constitutional, and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us," Murrill said in a statement posted to social media. Judge Stephen A. Higginson, in a dissenting opinion joined by four others on the court, wrote that the framers of the Constitution "intended disestablishment of religion, above all to prevent large religious sects from using political power to impose their religion on others." "Yet Texas, like Louisiana, seeks to do just that, legislating that specific, politically chosen scripture be installed in every public-school classroom," Higginson wrote. |
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Alleged white supremacist pleads guilty in fire at Tennessee center
Court Updates |
2026/04/11 04:22
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A man linked to white supremacist movements pleaded guilty on Monday to setting a fire that destroyed an office at a historic social justice center in Tennessee, a court document shows. Regan Prater also pleaded guilty to attempting to aid a foreign terrorist organization for efforts to provide the militant group Hezbollah "a list of personally identifiable information for individuals purportedly affiliated with the government of Israel," according to a criminal information filed in February. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 9 in Knoxville. A public defender representing Prater did not immediately respond to an email and phone message requesting comment. Prater was arrested last April in connection with the arson at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market. The arrest came more than six years after the March 2019 blaze, which caused more than $1.2 million in damage, prosecutors say. An affidavit filed in federal court in East Tennessee last year said Prater's posts in several group chats affiliated with white supremacist organizations connected him to the crime. In one private message, a witness who sent screenshots to the FBI asked a person authorities believe was Prater whether he set the fire. "I'm not admitting anything," the person using the screen name 'Rooster' wrote. But he later went on to describe exactly how the fire was set with "a sparkler bomb and some Napalm." A white-power symbol was spray-painted on the pavement near the site of the fire. The affidavit describes it as a "triple cross" and says it was also found on one of the firearms used by a shooter who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019, about two weeks before the Highlander fire. Prater was initially charged in 2025 with one count of arson. On Monday, the previous indictment was dismissed in favor of the criminal information filed in February which included the charge related to the Lebanese group Hezbollah. In a plea agreement filed the following day in February, the government agreed that a sentence of no more than 20 years was appropriate. Prater was previously sentenced to five years in federal prison for setting a fire in June 2019 at an adult video and novelty store in East Tennessee. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $106,000 in restitution in that case. At the scene of that fire, investigators found a cellphone they later determined belonged to Prater. The phone included a short video showing a person inside the store lighting an accelerant, according to the affidavit. |
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US deportation flights hit record highs as carriers try to hide the planes
Court Updates |
2025/08/27 13:57
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Immigration advocates gather like clockwork outside Seattle’s King County International Airport to witness deportation flights and spread word of where they are going and how many people are aboard. Until recently, they could keep track of the flights using publicly accessible websites.
But the monitors and others say airlines are now using dummy call signs for deportation flights and are blocking the planes’ tail numbers from tracking websites, even as the number of deportation flights hits record highs under President Donald Trump. The changes forced them to find other ways to follow the flights, including by sharing information with other groups and using data from an open-source exchange that tracks aircraft transmissions.
Their work helps people locate loved ones who are deported in the absence of information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which rarely discloses flights. News organizations have used such flight tracking in reporting.
Tom Cartwright, a retired J.P. Morgan financial officer turned immigration advocate, tracked 1,214 deportation-related flights in July ? the highest level since he started watching in January 2020. About 80% are operated by three airlines: GlobalX, Eastern Air Express and Avelo Airlines. They carry immigrants to other airports to be transferred to overseas flights or take them across the border, mostly to Central American countries and Mexico.
Cartwright tracked 5,962 flights from the start of Trump’s second term through July, a 41% increase from 1,721 over the same period in 2024. Those figures including information from major deportation airports but not smaller ones like King County International Airport, also known as Boeing Field. Cartwright’s figures include 68 military deportation flights since January ? 18 in July alone. Most have gone to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The work became so demanding that Cartwright, 71, and his group, Witness at the Border, turned over the job this month to Human Rights First, which dubbed its project “ICE Flight Monitor.”
“His work brings essential transparency to U.S. government actions impacting thousands of lives and stands as a powerful example of citizen-driven accountability in defense of human rights and democracy,” Uzrz Zeya, Human Rights First’s chief executive officer, said.
The airlines did not respond to multiple email requests for comment. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which would not confirm any security measures it has taken.
La Resistencia, a Seattle-area nonprofit immigration rights group, has monitored 59 flights at Boeing Field and five at the Yakima airport in 2025, surpassing its 2024 total of 42.
Not all are deportation flights. Many are headed to or from immigration detention centers or to airports near the border. La Resistencia counted 1,023 immigrants brought in to go to the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and 2,279 flown out, often to states on the U.S.-Mexico border.
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What’s next for birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court’s ruling
Court Updates |
2025/06/28 11:36
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The legal battle over President Donald Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration’s major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions.
Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent.
The high court’s ruling sends cases challenging the president’s birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president’s policy remains uncertain.
Here’s what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court’s ruling and what happens next.
What does birthright citizenship mean?
Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.
The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.
Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., no matter their parents’ legal status.
It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.
Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship
Trump’s executive order, signed in January, seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. It’s part of the hardline immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration.”
Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” – saying it means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally.
A series of federal judges have said that’s not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom.
In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed” Trump’s interpretation of birthright citizenship.
Is Trump’s order constitutional? The justices didn’t say
The high court’s ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge’s authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president’s authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters.
But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order.
“The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges’ decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor.
Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is “very confident” that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case.
Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps
The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps.
The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump’s order.
But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor.
“It’s not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,” said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions.
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