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Judge orders Trump administration to end National Guard deployment in DC
Legal Tribune |
2025/11/23 21:49
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A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to end its monthslong deployment of National Guard troops to help police the nation’s capital.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that President Donald Trump’s military takeover in Washington, D.C., illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the district. She put her order on hold for 21 days to allow for an appeal, however.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to challenge the Guard deployments. He asked the judge to bar the White House from deploying Guard troops without the mayor’s consent while the lawsuit plays out.
Dozens of states took sides in Schwalb’s lawsuit, with their support falling along party lines.
Cobb found that while the president does have authority to protect federal functioning and property, he can’t unilaterally deploy the D.C. National Guard to help with crime control as he sees fit or call in troops from other states.
After her ruling, Schwalb called for troops to be sent home. “Normalizing the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement sets a dangerous precedent, where the President can disregard states’ independence and deploy troops wherever and whenever he wants — with no check on his military power,” Schwalb said.
The White House, though, stood by the deployment.
“President Trump is well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C., to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks,” said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. “This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.”
In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the Secretary of the Army. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols.
The administration has also deployed Guard troops to Los Angeles and tried to send troops into Chicago and Portland, Oregon, prompting other court challenges. A federal appeals court allowed the Los Angeles deployment, and the administration is appealing a judge’s decision in Portland that found the president did not have the authority to call up or deploy National Guard troops there.
The Supreme Court is weighing the administration’s emergency appeal to be allowed to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area in support of an immigration crackdown. A lower court has indefinitely prevented the deployment.
In Washington, It’s unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said Guard troops are likely to remain in the city through at least next summer.
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S. Carolina lawmakers look at the most restrictive abortion bill in the US
Court Updates |
2025/11/18 06:08
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A bill that would allow judges to sentence women who get abortions to decades in prison and could restrict the use of IUDs and in vitro fertilization goes before a small group of South Carolina senators Tuesday.
This would be the first of at least a half-dozen legislative steps for the proposal that includes the strictest abortion prohibitions and punishments in the nation.
The subcommittee of the state Senate’s Medical Affairs Committee can change it Tuesday afternoon and even if it’s approved, its prospects are doubtful at best.
But even at this stage, the bill has gone further than any other such proposal across the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, opening the door for states to implement abortion bans.
The proposal would ban all abortions unless the woman’s life is threatened. Current state law bans abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which is typically six week into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Current law also allows abortions for rape and incest victims up to 12 weeks.
The proposal would also do things that aren’t being done in any other state. Women who get an abortion and anyone who helps them could face up to 30 years in prison. It appears to ban any contraception that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which would ban intrauterine devices and could limit in vitro fertilization.
Providing information about abortions would be illegal, leaving doctors worried they couldn’t suggest places where the procedure is legal.
Republican Sen. Richard Cash, who sponsors the bill and is one of the Senate’s most strident voices against abortion, will run Tuesday’s subcommittee. He acknowledged problems last month with potentially banning contraception and restricting the advice doctors can give to patients. But he has given no indication what changes he or the rest of the subcommittee might support. Six of the nine members are Republicans.
Abortion remains an unsettled issue in conservative states and how much more to restrict it is fracturing anti-abortion groups.
South Carolina Citizens for Life, one of the state’s largest and oldest opponents of abortion, issued a statement last month saying it can’t support Cash’s bill because women who get abortions are victims too and shouldn’t be punished.
On the other side, at least for this bill, are groups like Equal Protection South Carolina. “Abortion is murder and should be treated as such,” founder Mark Corral said. |
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Federal immigration agents will expand enforcement action in N. Carolina
Headline Legal Topics |
2025/11/16 06:08
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Federal immigration authorities will expand their enforcement action in North Carolina to Raleigh as soon as Tuesday, the mayor of the state’s capital city said, while Customs and Border Protection agents continue operating in Charlotte following a weekend that saw arrests of more than 130 people in that city.
Mayor Janet Cowell said Monday that she didn’t know how large the operation would be or how long agents would be present. Immigration authorities haven’t spoken about it. The Democrat said in a statement that crime was lower in Raleigh this year compared to last and that public safety was a priority for her and the city council.
“I ask Raleigh to remember our values and maintain peace and respect through any upcoming challenges,” Cowell said in a statement.
U.S. immigration agents arrested more than 130 people over the weekend in a sweep through Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, a federal official said Monday.
The movements in North Carolina come after the Trump administration launched immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago. Both of those are deep blue cities in deep blue states run by nationally prominent officials who make no secret of their anger at the White House. The political reasoning there seemed obvious.
Sure the mayor is a Democrat, as is the governor, but neither is known for wading into national political battles. In a state where divided government has become the norm, Gov. Josh Stein in particular has tried hard to get along with the GOP-controlled state legislature. The state’s two U.S. senators are both Republican and President Donald Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.
But maybe focusing on a place where politics is less outwardly bloody was part of the equation, some observers say.
The White House “can have enough opposition (to its crackdown), but it’s a weaker version” than what it faced in places like Chicago, said Rick Su, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law who studies local government, immigration and federalism. |
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Dominican appeals court to hear arguments on Franco’s conviction
Headline Legal Topics |
2025/11/11 06:07
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Wander Franco’s attorneys pushed to have the suspended Tampa Bay Rays shortstop’s sexual-abuse conviction and sentencing overturned Tuesday.
Franco in June was convicted of sexually abusing a minor, and he then received a two-year suspended sentence. Meanwhile, prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence.
The court of appeals in Puerto Plata, where the case was heard, said it would issue a ruling on Dec. 9 after hearing arguments from prosecutors and Franco’s lawyers.
Franco was arrested last year after being accused of having a four-month relationship with a girl who was 14 at the time, and of transferring thousands of dollars to her mother to consent to the illegal relationship.
Franco was once Tampa Bay’s star shortstop, signing an 11-year, $182 million contract in November 2021.
Authorities in the Dominican Republic announced in August 2023 they were investigating him for an alleged relationship with a minor.
In January 2024, Franco was arrested in his home country. Six months later, Tampa Bay placed him on the restricted list. |
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Republican US Rep. Elise Stefanik is running for governor of New York
Legal Tribune |
2025/11/07 08:24
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U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a close Republican ally of President Donald Trump, announced Friday that she’s running for governor of New York, a place she depicted in a campaign launch video as being “in ashes” because of lawlessness and a high cost of living.
In her video, a narrator declares “The Empire State has fallen” as it painted a grim picture of crime and economic crisis in New York City, though her message appeared to be aimed at other, more conservative parts of the state that she will need to win over next year.
“Under Kathy Hochul’s failed leadership, New York is the most unaffordable state in the nation with the highest taxes, highest energy, utilities, rent, and grocery prices crushing hardworking families,” Stefanik said in a statement.
Stefanik, who represents a conservative congressional district in upstate New York, has for months teased a run, leveling heavy criticism at incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul and more recently toward Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City.
Last year, Trump picked Stefanik to be the administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, but later rescinded the nomination over concerns about Republicans’ tight margins in the House.
Though any Republican faces long odds of winning the governor’s mansion in New York, Stefanik’s campaign will bring solid name recognition, fundraising prowess and deep ties to the White House. Her campaign announced Friday that she has received the backing of nearly three-quarters of the state’s county Republican chairs.
In a statement, Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika called Stefanik “Donald Trump’s number one cheerleader in Congress.”
“Apparently, screwing over New Yorkers in Congress wasn’t enough — now she’s trying to bring Trump’s chaos and skyrocketing costs to our state,” Chitika said.
The Republican primary field remains unclear ahead of the 2026 race. U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler had been contemplating a run and was considered a potentially strong candidate, but said earlier this year that he would instead seek reelection in his battleground House district in the New York Hudson Valley.
Hochul faces a contested primary, with her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, running against her.
Stefanik, a Harvard graduate, was 30 when she was first elected to the House in 2014. She entered Congress as a moderate Republican but soon attached herself to Trump, reshaping her persona into more of a brash, outspoken MAGA disciple.
Her national profile got a big boost after she aggressively questioned a group of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses, leading to two of their resignations and winning praise from the Republican president.
Democrats have a major voter registration edge in New York. The last Republican governor in the state was former Gov. George Pataki, who left office about two decades ago. Still, Republican Lee Zeldin, a former Long Island congressman and current head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made a serious run for the office in 2022, coming within striking distance of upsetting Hochul. |
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