Category: Justice

DHS Hides Monthly Number of Illegal Migrants Released into U.S., Former Immigration Judge Says

Just the News

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is deliberately not releasing the monthly totals of all illegal migrants who wind up getting released into the U.S. after they are encountered by U.S. authorities at the border, a former U.S. immigration judge says.

Andrew Arthur, who served for eight years as an immigration judge at the now-closed immigration court in York, Pennsylvania, told Just the News that DHS does track the total number of migrants released after an encounter with border agents, but making that data available to the public would paint the Biden Administration in a negative light.

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California Church Sues Government over Alleged ‘Spying’ on Worshippers

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Tuesday, a California church that had previously been ordered to pay over $1.2 million in fines to the state government filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that the local government spied on its worshippers.

Fox News reports that the Calvary Chapel San Jose, led by Pastor Mike McClure, alleges that officials in Santa Clara County utilized the Colorado-based company SafeGraph to engage in “an invasive and warrantless geofencing operation to track residents” without their knowledge. The lawsuit was filed on the church’s behalf by the advocacy group Advocates for Faith & Freedom.

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Montana AG Asks SCOTUS to Take Up Case Challenging State Agency That Encouraged Social Media Censorship

Minnesota Sun Staff

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the Supreme Court Friday to hear a case that challenges a state agency’s efforts to police election-related “misinformation” on Twitter.

A group of nine attorneys general led by Knudsen filed an amicus brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to hear O’Handley v. Weber, a lawsuit challenging the California Secretary of State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity’s practice of flagging “false or misleading” election information for removal by Twitter. The states call the agency’s actions an “anathema” to the First Amendment and argue they reflect similar conduct occurring at the federal level.

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Republican Candidates Need Not Apply: Media Tracker’s New Study Shows Just How Politically Biased Google’s Search Results Are

M.D. Kittle

Google has long been accused of suppressing conservative speech, but a new study shows the internet search engine giant is playing favorites with Democrats in the 2024 presidential race.

By typing in just one query, “Presidential campaign websites,” Google returned only Democratic Party candidates — some of whom are not even running in 2024, according to Media Research Center, the media watchdog and parent of conservative news site NewsBusters, which is “committed to exposing and combating liberal media bias.”

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Christian Mother Fights for Right to Adopt After Refusing to Affirm Gender Transitions for Minors

Minnesota Sun Staff

Christian single mother Jessica Bates was “shocked” when Oregon denied her adoption application because she did not support medically transitioning children, she told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

Bates, a mother of five, was looking to adopt a “sibling pair” in 2022 six years after her husband died in a car accident, saying to the DCNF that she felt it was a “calling from God,” but after going through the application process, state officials with the Department of Human Services explained that she would need to agree to support any adopted child’s desire to have a gender transition. As a Christian, Bates told the DCNF that she knew this requirement was “denying reality” as well as her faith, and filed a lawsuit with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) against the state in April after they reportedly prevented her from moving forward in the process.

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Biden DOJ Sues SpaceX for Preferring American Citizens over Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Its Hiring Practices

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Thursday, the Biden Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against SpaceX, accusing the company of discrimination for preferring American citizens over asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices.

In its 13-page complaint, the Justice Dept. alleges that SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”  The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division seeks to force SpaceX to give “fair compensation” to non-citizens that were not hired.

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Newest Minnesota Supreme Court Appointee Was Walz’s Chief Legal Counsel During Pandemic, Riots

Minnesota Sun Staff

Gov. Tim Walz announced the appointment of one of his administration’s top attorneys to the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Karl Procaccini, 40, has spent the last 4.5 years as general counsel and deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office. Depending on who you ask, the Connecticut native and Harvard Law grad has been regarded as either a prudent or overreaching legal advisor to Walz during the Covid-19 pandemic and riots in 2020 and 2021.

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Commentary: Georgia Indictment Is the Dems’ Latest Bid to Jail Trump, Imprison the Constitution

Minnesota Sun Staff

Rather than simply try to defeat Donald J. Trump, Democrats want him to die in prison. Neo-totalitarian Democrat campaign operatives masquerading as local, county, and federal prosecutors have deployed four criminal cases against the former president. The New York Post calculates that if he is convicted on all 91 charges he faces, Trump would spend 712 years behind bars. The surprisingly spry 77-year-old could enrage his critics even further, live until at least 2735 A.D., and regain his freedom at age 789.

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After His Arrest in Georgia Indictment, Disbarment Hearing of Trump’s Attorney John Eastman Resumes

Rachel Alexander

The disbarment trial of former Donald Trump attorney and constitutional scholar John Eastman for his role advising the previous president about challenging the 2020 presidential election resumed on Thursday after almost a two-month break caused by conflicting schedules among the parties.

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South Carolina Supreme Court Upholds State’s Pro-Life Heartbeat Bill

Susan Berry, PhD

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday the state’s pro-life law that prohibits most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected is constitutional and may be enforced.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling marks a historic moment in our state’s history and is the culmination of years of hard work and determination by so many in our state to ensure that the sanctity of life is protected,” said Governor Henry McMaster (R) in a statement. “With this victory, we protect the lives of countless unborn children and reaffirm South Carolina’s place as one of the most pro-life states in America.”

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Media Giant Sued for Allegedly Discriminating Against White Employees

Minnesota Sun Staff

The largest newspaper publisher in the U.S., Gannett, was hit with a class action lawsuit Friday that alleges its diversity efforts discriminated against non-minority employees.

Current, former and prospective Gannett employees filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging the company’s “Reverse Race Discrimination Policy” discriminated against “non-minorities” on the basis of race. The policy, announced in 2020, sought to ensure its newsrooms’ demographics reflected the communities they covered by 2025.

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Court Rules Alabama Can Enforce Ban on Transgender Medical Treatments for Minors

Susan Berry, PhD

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously reversed a district court’s temporary halt to enforcement of an Alabama law that prohibits minors from obtaining puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries for treating gender dysphoria.

In Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall, the appeals court on Monday rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments, described in the opinion as “a group of transgender minors, their parents, and other concerned individuals” who challenged the constitutionality of Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act.

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Border Encounters of Migrants with Suspected Terror Ties Jumped 15 Percent Last Month

Just the News

The number of migrants with suspected terror ties encountered at U.S. “land border ports of entry” increased 15% in one month, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

A total amount of individuals who appear on the terrorist watchlist caught at ports of entry jumped from 382 to 442 after CBP publicly released its July 2023 operational data. So far into fiscal year 2023, 70 have been caught at the southwest border and 372 have been caught at the northern border. 

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Trump Co-Defendant John Eastman Turns Himself in to Fulton County Officials in 2020 Election Case

Just the News

Attorney John Eastman turned himself in Tuesday to the Fulton County jail, records show, after he was indicted last week alongside former President Donald Trump and 17 other co-conspirators for their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

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California Doctors Sue to Stop Mandated ‘Implicit Bias Training’

Minnesota Sun Staff

A medical nonprofit and two California doctors are suing the state medical board to block a law requiring mandatory implicit bias training in continuing medical education.

“Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the government cannot compel speakers to engage in discussions on subjects they prefer to remain silent about,” the suit argued.

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Federal Judge Rules AI-Generated Art Cannot Be Copyrighted: ‘Approaching New Frontiers’

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge ruled Friday that art produced by artificial intelligence without human involvement cannot be copyrighted.

District Court Judge for the District Of Columbia Beryl A. Howell agreed with the United States Copyright Office’s decision not to grant copyright protection to the owner of a computer system for art generated by the system. Stephen Thaler, who owns a program called the “Creativity Machine,” was denied a copyright by the office for a piece of visual art his system created because it “lacked human authorship,” which Howell notes is “a bedrock requirement of copyright.”

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Supreme Court Will Take on Red Flag Law

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Supreme Court will hear a case this coming term challenging a federal “Red Flag” law that prohibits individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms, which is expected to shape the future of Second Amendment law.

Zackey Rahimi, the individual at the center of the case, was involved in five shootings between December 2020 and January 2021, in one instance firing shots into the air after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger, according to court documents. When police obtained a warrant to search his home, they found him in possession of a firearm, a violation of a civil protective order entered against him in February 2020 for allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

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Federal Authorities See Massive 33 Percent Spike in Illegal Immigration at Southern Border

Minnesota Sun Staff

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered a surge in migrants at the southern border in July after the Biden administration claimed success in the implementation of new policies and programs, according to federal data released Friday.

CBP recorded 183,503 migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in July, according to the data. The Biden administration has touted the creation of new legal pathways for migrants to get to the U.S. following the expiration of the Title 42 expulsion order in May as the reason CBP migrant encounters dropped from 206,701 in May to 144,566 in June.

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Commentary: President Trump Can Use Political Pressure to Defeat the Biden Witch Hunt

Minnesota Sun Staff

President Trump, as well as his base of tens of millions of supporters, need to prepare themselves for chaos in 2024. The witch hunt directed against President Trump and his supporters is a sign of the insanity and hysteria infecting the Democratic Party. No matter how the 2024 election turns out, it will be destabilizing for the country. 

More importantly, Trump simply cannot trust the courts in any Democrat controlled state or the Biden regime’s Department of Injustice to treat him fairly. President Trump’s legal problems require political solutions. 

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Von Spakovsky: Fulton County Indictment Against Trump and 18 Others Is a ‘Broad Attack on the First Amendment’

M.D. Kittle

Constitutional law expert Hans von Spakovsky has seen his share of questionable prosecutions in his distinguished career.

But he says he’s seen few more abusive than this week’s indictment brought by far left Fulton County, GA, District Attorney Fani Willis against former President Donald Trump.

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Biden Probe Shifts to National Archives with Discovery of Private Emails from Joe to Hunter

Just the News

In a dramatic shift in the Biden family corruption probe, House investigators on Thursday demanded full access at the National Archives to Joe Biden’s communications as vice president with son Hunter and his business partners.

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D.C. Dealt More Harshly with Pro-Life Protesters than Black Lives Matter, Federal Court Rules

Just the News

Washington, D.C., unfairly enforced its “defacement” ordinances by dealing more harshly with pro-life protesters than with Black Lives Matter activists, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

“In the summer of 2020, thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the District to proclaim ‘Black Lives Matter,'” the court wrote in its decision, obtained by Fox News. “Over several weeks, the protesters covered streets, sidewalks, and storefronts with paint and chalk. The markings were ubiquitous and in open violation of the District’s defacement ordinance, yet none of the protesters was arrested.”

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Montana Judge Rules in Favor of Climate Activists in First-of-its-Kind Trial

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Monday, a far-left climate activist group scored a legal victory when a judge in Montana ruled in their favor, declaring that state agencies are legally obligated to protect citizens from so-called “global warming.”

As ABC News reports, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley determined that the state of Montana’s current policy of evaluating requests for fossil fuel permits is unconstitutional, as it does not include a provision forcing agencies to consider greenhouse gas emissions. If it stands, it could set a similar precedent for the entire country.

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Suspected Terrorism Funder Arrested After Being Released into U.S. at Border

The Center Square

Another foreign national who entered the U.S. illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration had an extensive criminal record and was wanted in Venezuela for financing terrorism.

In April 2021, Border Patrol agents arrested a Venezuelan national for illegal entry near San Luis, Arizona, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was charged with inadmissibility under U.S. immigration law and issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

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Cigar Industry Wins Court Round in Challenge to FDA Regulations

The Center Square

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to regulate premium cigars.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington D.C. ruled that the FDA ignored scientific evidence when it included premium cigars in its Proposed Rule Deeming Tobacco Products to Be Subject to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FDCA).

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State Supreme Court Says Religious Schools Can Require Teachers to Adhere to Faith-Based Principles

Minnesota Sun Staff

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school Monday, arguing that religious organizations have the right to require their staff to adhere to certain faith-based principles, according to court documents.

The case involved former teacher Victoria Crisitello whose contract was not renewed by St. Theresa School after she disclosed that she had become pregnant outside of wedlock, which was a violation of the school’s code of ethics, according to the ruling. After her contract was not renewed in 2014, Crisitello filed a lawsuit against the school claiming that she had been discriminated against, but the New Jersey justices did not agree, according to court documents.

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Police Chief Stands by Extensive Raid of Kansas Newspaper and Home Where 98-Year Old Owner Died

Just the News

The Marion Police Department says its raid of a Kansas newspaper’s office and the home of the paper’s owners was justified without a subpoena because the law allows raids when a reporter is a suspect in an offense.

Marion’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies on Friday raided the Marion County Record’s office as well as the home of Joan Meyer and her son, Eric Meyer, on Friday. Joan Meyer, who was 98 but in “otherwise good health for her age,” according to the Record, died Saturday after being stressed from the raid.

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Georgia Grand Jury Hands Up 10 Indictments, Subjects Still Unnamed

Just the News

A Georgia grand jury approved 10 indictments in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election probe, signing off on every indictment prosecutors brought to it. The indictments comes two and a half years after Willis started her investigation in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the Peach State. None of the targets of the indictments have been named as of press time.

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Vivek Ramaswamy Says Fulton County GA Publication then Removal of Charges Against Trump ‘Downright Pathetic’ and a Violation of Due Process

Kaitlin Housler

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy reacted to an apparent mistake made by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office on Monday as it published and quickly deleted the charges against former President Donald Trump on its website before the grand jury had finished convening.

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Appeals Court Says FDA Denunciations of Ivermectin Look Like ‘Command,’ not Advice

Just the News

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  is claiming in federal court that it never told doctors not to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Federal judges aren’t buying it, and state medical boards that rely heavily on FDA guidance continue to investigate doctors for such prescriptions.

Echoing a federal district judge nine months ago, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pressed a Justice Department lawyer to reconcile the FDA’s repeated public denunciations of ivermectin as an off-label COVID treatment with its insistence that the agency is not liable for resulting investigations of doctors who prescribe or promote it.

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Commentary: Forget ‘Contempt of Court,’ What About ‘Contempt of Public’?

Minnesota Sun Staff

We have all heard about contempt of court and contempt of Congress. They are offenses for which one may be fined or jailed. But what about contempt of public? What’s the penalty for that?

I don’t know that you will find contempt of public in the statute books. If not I offer up the phrase free and for nothing to the bureaucrats who look after such things. I think it should be added to our vocabulary if not to our code of laws. It names a grievous assault on the community. By making a travesty of the rules and institutions that undergird our social life, contempt of public threatens to undermine that essential if often hard-to-define societal lubricant: trust.

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Federal Judge Halts Idaho Law Banning Boys from Girls’ Bathrooms

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge decided Thursday to temporarily block enforcement of an Idaho law meant to bar biological males from using female restrooms.

Senate Bill 1100, which was signed by Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little, went into effect July 1 and required schools to have two separate bathrooms, one for each biological sex, and allowed students to sue the school for up to $5,000 for each transgender person who is found to be using a bathroom that does not match their biological sex, according to the law. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal activist group, sued to block the law on July 7, arguing the law violates the premise of the Equal Protection Clause and will cause harm to transgender persons, according to the lawsuit.

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Commentary: The Left’s Relentless, Unjustified Assaults on the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy

Minnesota Sun Staff

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been the target of a relentless and strategic campaign aimed at undermining its credibility and impartiality.

Left-wing publications such as ProPublica, Slate, and The Guardian have led an orchestrated assault against the high court’s Republican-appointed justices, and their message has been amplified by Senate Democrats.

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Merrick Garland’s Special Counsel Appointment May Violate DOJ’s Own Rules, Legal Experts Say

Minnesota Sun Staff

U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ appointment Friday as special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation appears to violate a Department of Justice (DOJ) regulation requiring a special counsel to “be selected from outside the United States Government.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Weiss’ appointment as special counsel Friday, noting he would “continue to have the authority and the responsibility that he has previously exercised” and explaining Weiss had requested to be appointed on Tuesday. The Justice Department regulation, which governs the powers and qualifications of a special counsel, was also used to criticize the 2020 appointment of John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe while he was serving as U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut.

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As Trials Near, Pro-Life Activists Demand Repeal of Unequally Enforced FACE Act

Minnesota Sun Staff

Jury selection began Wednesday in Washington, D.C., in the trials of the first five of 10 pro-life activists indicted under the FACE Act. 

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services,” according to the Department of Justice. 

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Sens. Grassley and Johnson Say Defense Agency and Georgia Tech May have Targeted RNC, DNC Networks

M.D. Kittle

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) said an email was uncovered recently that exposed a U.S. Defense agency project aimed at targeting Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee networks.

At the core of the concerning discovery are some serious questions, including whether the Pentagon’s research arm was involved in driving false claims that Russians working for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hacked into the DNC email server in 2016.

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Judge Sides with Trump on Protective Order, Handing Jack Smith an Early Defeat

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge on Friday sided with Donald Trump, rejecting a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith for a protective order that would have imposed some speech restrictions on the former president as he runs in the 2024 election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled prosecutors did not meet the burden for the protective order but also put Trump on notice he will have to be careful about what he says and releases about the case.

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