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Tag: hatch act

  • ACLU Virginia sues Trump administration over detaining of immigrant children – WTOP News

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia has filed a class-action lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s administration’s policy of detaining immigrant children.

    The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia has filed a class-action lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s administration’s policy of detaining immigrant children without bond hearings, stating the practice violates decades of federal law intended to protect vulnerable youth.

    The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia, names four plaintiffs who came to the U.S. after being abused, neglected or abandoned by their parents. All have obtained or applied for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a legal designation Congress created nearly 40 years ago to provide a pathway to citizenship for children who cannot safely return to their home countries.

    “These children have every right to pursue SIJS,” said Sophia Gregg, ACLU senior immigrants’ rights attorney. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “recategorizing and reconsidering the entire federal regulations … and their justification really doesn’t hold any water.”

    The four plaintiffs are currently being held at the Farmville and Caroline detention facilities in Virginia. According to the ACLU, their detention is part of a broader Trump administration strategy to classify immigrant youth with SIJS as “arriving noncitizens,” subject to mandatory detention and ineligible for bond hearings.

    “We’re seeing this across the country for all individuals. Millions of people, potentially, are in immigration detention who would otherwise not have been a few months ago,” Gregg told WTOP. “Those unaccompanied minors are protected under the many federal laws and anti-trafficking laws that are specifically intended to protect children.”

    Under the SIJS process, immigrant children must first be released to a sponsor, placed under custody orders from a state judge, and then they can apply for status. Visa availability can take years, but the protections Congress established were designed to prevent children from being detained while they wait.

    Instead, the ACLU lawsuit argues, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is keeping children locked up and cutting them off from the ability to pursue their cases and effectively pressuring them to abandon their rights.

    Gregg called the policy part of “a mass deportation agenda,” adding these are kids “Congress intended to protect … and identified as being the most vulnerable and in need of protection.”

    “The immigration courts are now taking the position, as is the rest of the Trump administration, that nobody, including this specifically vulnerable group, is entitled to hearings for the release under bond pending their immigration cases,” Gregg said.

    The case, Sarmiento v. Crawford, was filed with co-counsel Tanishka Cruz of Cruz Law, and Patrice Kopistansky. The ACLU is seeking the immediate release of the named plaintiffs, as well as a ruling that would guarantee bond hearings for similarly situated minors nationwide.

    Violation of the Hatch Act

    On Friday, the watchdog group Public Citizen filed 11 complaints against major agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration and the White House.

    The complaints accuse the federal agencies of tampering with webpages and automatic out-of-office emails to blame Democrats for the government shutdown.

    As of Friday afternoon, HUD’s website featured a banner and a pop-up message blaming the “Radical Left” for the current federal government shutdown.

    A banner on the Department of Housing and Urban Development website currently reads, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.” (Screenshot via WTOP Staff)

    Ethics experts argue the edits violate the Hatch Act, which bars political activity in federal workplaces and protects employees from partisan pressure. They warn the coordinated changes not only misrepresent federal workers but also use government resources to sway voters.

    “This is unique. … These agencies are the biggest agencies in the federal government. You’ve got a coordinated effort coming from the White House to get the entire federal government and all the different agencies working together to try to influence the electoral mood of the American public to support Donald Trump and oppose Democrats. I’ve never seen this type of scope of violation of the Hatch Act before in my life,” government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman said. 

    Holman, who filed the complaints with Public Citizen, added, “This ought to be enough to actually make the Office of Special Counsel do something, or if they don’t do something, it gives me grounds for litigation.”

    WTOP’s Michelle Murillo contributed to this report.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • Is the Trump Administration’s Shutdown Messaging Illegal?

    Some experts think the overtly political messaging could run afoul of the Hatch Act, a federal law that places specific limits on the political activities of civil employees of the federal government.

    Michael Fallings, a federal-employment attorney and managing partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey, told NPR that such direction from the federal government “could be considered a violation of the Hatch Act.”

    “Here, while the reference to Democrats alone likely does not constitute a violation, the explicit blaming of the Democratic Party for the shutdown and ‘reference to radical left’ may constitute a violation,” he told the outlet in a statement.

    Donald Sherman, the executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told NBC News that the messaging is likely in violation of the code of conduct for federal employees. “There’s no universe where that is acceptable or advisable under the code of conduct.”

    Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group, has filed complaints against the multiple departments who have adapted this messaging including HUD and the SBA, alleging Hatch Act violations. “This is such an obvious violation of the Hatch Act that it raises the question: ‘How on Earth does HUD think they can get away with this?’ Craig Holman, the group’s government-affairs lobbyist, said in a statement.

    Nia Prater

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  • Biden’s press secretary violated Hatch Act, watchdog says | CNN Politics

    Biden’s press secretary violated Hatch Act, watchdog says | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre violated the Hatch Act for using the term “mega MAGA” from the briefing room podium, the US Office of the Special Counsel has determined, and has received a warning letter.

    Jean-Pierre was found to be in violation of the Hatch Act, a law that is supposed to stop the federal government from affecting elections or going about its activities in a partisan manner, when she said “mega MAGA Republican officials who don’t believe in the rule of law,” according to a letter from OSC. The letter was addressed to Michael Chamberlain, a former Trump administration official and director of the “Protect the Public’s Trust” organization, after Chamberlain filed a complaint that Jean-Pierre used the phrase “mega MAGA Republican[s]” in an “an inappropriate attempt to influence the vote.”

    “OSC has investigated your allegation and concluded that Ms. Jean‐Pierre violated the Hatch Act. However … we have decided not to pursue disciplinary action and have instead issued Ms. Jean‐Pierre a warning letter,” OSC’s Hatch Act Unit chief Ana Galindo-Marrone said in the June 7 letter to Chamberlain, who served in the Department of Education during Donald Trump’s presidency.

    Galindo-Marrone wrote, “OSC concluded that the timing, frequency, and content of Ms. Jean‐Pierre’s references to ‘MAGA Republicans’ established that she made those references to generate opposition to Republican candidates. Accordingly, making the references constituted political activity. Because Ms. Jean‐Pierre made the statements while acting in her official capacity, she violated the Hatch Act prohibition against using her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.”

    Galindo-Marrone suggested that the White House Counsel’s Office “did not at the time believe” that those remarks were prohibited by the Hatch Act, and that it was “unclear” whether OSC’s analysis “was ever conveyed to Ms. Jean-Pierre.”

    Jean-Pierre has taken pains during her tenure to avoid Hatch Act violations. She has refused to answer political questions, citing the 1939 law, during more than 40 White House press briefings or gaggles. Former members of Biden’s administration – namely former chief of staff Ron Klain and former press secretary Jen Psaki – have been accused of violating the Hatch Act.

    White House spokesman Andrew Bates told CNN that the White House is reviewing the OSC’s opinion.

    “As has been made clear throughout the administration, we take the law seriously and uphold the Hatch Act. We are reviewing this opinion,” Bates said.

    A Biden administration official also noted the Trump White House’s repeated use of the term “Make America Great Again” for official purposes – found in nearly 2,000 references on the official Trump White House website. Thirteen senior Trump administration officials violated the Hatch Act, according to a report released from the OSC in November 2021.

    “Mega-MAGA” and other similar terms were used often from the White House briefing room podium in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections as the White House sought to draw contrasts with Trump-aligned factions of the GOP.

    Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn spoke about the decision to use the tongue-twister. While she said she “did not coin it” herself, she told Axios in a conversation shortly before the election, she was involved in the decision to harness the term as the White House went on the offensive.

    “I did not coin it, no – I was part of a project when I was outside of the government that was looking deeply at Republican elected officials, at how they describe themselves, at their agenda, at a wing, in particular, of Republicans who had espoused certain beliefs, starting with denial about the election results in 2020, and looking for an effective way to shorthand all of that for people,” she said.

    The use of the term “MAGA,” Dunn said, “came very organically out of research, listening to people talk about what they thought was the problem with some of these Republican elected officials.”

    Pressed on the use of “mega” and “ultra” as MAGA modifiers, she added, “Well, it was MAGA, but, you know, you can always improve on something.”

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