Tom Fitton’s Judicial Watch Weekly Update
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September 20, 2024
Judicial Watch Pursues Civil Rights Lawsuit against Reparations Policy
Judicial Watch Sues over Trip to Cuba Led by Reps. Omar and Jayapal
Judicial Watch Sues for Records about Transgender Surgeries for Minors
ICE Issues Half the Detainers for Criminal Aliens Under Biden than Trump
Judicial Watch Pursues Civil Rights Lawsuit against Reparations Policy
We’re not backing away from our effort to stop an unconstitutional city program.
We asked a court to reject a motion by the City of Evanston, IL, to dismiss our class action lawsuit on behalf of six individuals over the city’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for a reparations program.
This program makes $25,000 direct cash payments to black residents and descendants of black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Flinn et al. v Evanston (No. 1:24-cv-04269)).
We allege in the complaint that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In response to the city’s motion to dismiss, Judicial Watch argues that the case should continue to go forward because:
Plaintiffs have alleged all facts necessary to state a timely claim that, but for their race, they are eligible to participate in the program and receive $25,000 direct cash payments. The program’s eligibility requirements are simple, straightforward, and easy to satisfy, and Plaintiffs have alleged that they were and are “ready and able” to satisfy them at all relevant times. They need not allege anything more to invoke this Court’s jurisdiction.
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[T]he program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest. Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest. Among the program’s other fatal flaws is that it uses race as a proxy for discrimination without requiring proof of discrimination.
Evanston’s reparations scheme rejects a colorblind Constitution and unconstitutionally discriminates against anyone who does not identify as Black or African American. The court should allow our civil rights lawsuit to move forward.
Our lawsuits challenging unconstitutional discrimination are extensive.
On January 29, 2024, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of San Francisco taxpayers over a city program that discriminates in favor of biological black and Latino men who identify as women in the distribution of tax money. The lawsuit was filed after we earlier forced the release of records from the City of San Francisco showing the city prioritized tax money for black and Latino transgenders (biological men) in the Guaranteed Income for Trans People program.
In December 2023, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling and allowed our historic lawsuit filed on behalf of a Minneapolis taxpayer over a teachers’ contract that provides discriminatory job protections to certain racial minorities to proceed.
The City of Asheville, NC, in January 2022 settled our federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators.
In May 2022, we won a court battle against California’s gender quota law for corporate boards. The verdict came after a 28-day trial. The verdict followed a similar ruling in Judicial Watch’s favor in April finding California’s race, ethnicity and LGBT quotas or corporate boards unconstitutional.
The rule of law and the equal protection provisions of our state and federal constitutions are under dramatic attack. You can be sure your Judicial Watch will stand fast in the courts against these racialist, leftist assaults on the American way.
Judicial Watch Sues over Trip to Cuba Led by Reps. Omar and Jayapal
Why won’t the Biden-Harris administration release records of a trip to Cuba by leftist members of Congress?
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department for all records related to the secretive trip in February 2024 of a Congressional Progressive Caucus delegation to communist Cuba led by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:24-cv-01950).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the State Department failed to adequately respond to a February 28, 2024, FOIA request for:
All records related to the Congressional Delegation to Cuba in February 2024. For purposes of clarification, the delegation included Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and others (please see https://news.yahoo.com/were-members-u-congressional-progressive-200304832.html). This request includes, but is not limited to, all related agendas, briefing materials, and records of communication.
The trip had not been reported in Cuban state media until the Miami Herald reported on February 27, 2024, that Omar and Jayapal led a delegation of about a dozen people who visited the communist island which has been under U.S. embargo for more than 60 years. The delegation to Cuba included a congressional staffer from the office of Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-CA) office.
Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Omar have criticized the embargo and have advocated for the removal of the Communist-controlled Cuba from the U.S. list of nations which sponsor terrorism.
The New York Post reported in February: “The mysterious trip, which took place during a week when the House was in recess, also overlapped with a visit to Havana by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.”
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the son of Cuban immigrants, wrote on X: “Pro-Hamas members of Marxist congressional squad just returned from a secret visit with anti-American dictatorship in Cuba.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) wrote on X: “It’s outrageous that Members of Congress would visit a country that jails, abuses, and murders their citizens and supports Iran, Russia and Communist China against our interests. Perhaps their time would be better spent listening to the Cubans crossing our southern border & risking their lives on makeshift rafts to find out why they’re fleeing Communism.”
Extreme Leftist members of Congress traveled to Cuba to provide aid and comfort for the terrorist-supporting, murderous Communist regime. What is the Biden-Harris administration hiding about this scandalous, taxpayer-funded trip?
Judicial Watch Sues for Records about Transgender Surgeries for Minors
The Biden-Harris administration is letting its extreme leftist ideology affect the health of our children.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for all records of communications of Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine regarding pressure put on an international group of medical experts to remove age limit guidelines on transgender procedures (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:24-cv-02588)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Health and Human Services failed to respond to a July 3, 2024, FOIA request for:
All records of communications sent to and from HHS assistant secretary Rachel Levine regarding the removal of minimum ages for the treatment of children in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) 2022 standards of care. This includes but is not limited to communications with wpath, Walter Bouman, the World Health Organization (“WHO”), Dr. Jason Rafferty, Chase Strangio, Sarah Boateng, Amy Tishelman, and Dr. Eli Coleman. A reasonable search should include, but not be limited to, the search terms “2022 standards of care,” “SOC-8,” “minimum age,” “transgender care,” and “WPATH.”
According to a June 24, 2024, Alabama court filing in Boe v. Marshall, Levine feared that World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) draft guidelines would make it difficult for American transgender youth to obtain access to the procedures, including gender-changing surgery: “These were age 14 for cross-sex hormone treatment; age 15 for chest masculinization surgery; age 16 for breast augmentation and facial surgery; and age 17 for metoidioplasty, orchidectomy (castration), hysterectomy, and fronto-orbital remodeling.”
Psychologist Dr. James Cantor provided expert testimony on World Professional Association for Transgender Health documents as part of litigation challenging an Alabama law. Cantor testified that “Assistant Secretary Levine … influence[d] the substantive content of SOC-8 [Standards of Care], based on political goals rather than science. Specifically, Assistant Secretary Levine, through a staff member, pressured WPATH to remove recommended minimum ages for medical transition treatments from SOC-8.”
In a communication provided to the court an association member had written:
Sarah Boateng, who is Adm. Levine’s chief of staff [said the] biggest concern is the section below in the Adolescent Chapter that lists specific minimum ages for treatment, she is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in DC, and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out and perhaps an adjunct document could be created that is published or distributed in a way that is less visible than the SOC8, is the way to go….
We sent the document to Admiral Levine … She likes the SOC-8 [Standards of Care] very much but she was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too. Apparently the situation in the USA is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse.
Cantor further testified:
As a result of this additional pressure, on top of that from Assistant Secretary Levine, WPATH capitulated and removed the text in violation of its own process despite the preference of its own committee members to retain the age limits.
According to a June 25, 2024, New York Times report, the eighth edition of its standards of care, released in September 2022, had no age minimums for transgender procedures.
Read the full “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” here. Sections six and seven focus on adolescents and children.
Biden-Harris appointee Admiral Levine, who abused power and is notorious for promoting transgender extremist policies, promoted mutilating surgeries for minors. It is no wonder the Biden-Harris administration wants to cover this up with unlawful secrecy. Our lawsuit to expose the truth is urgently needed to protect children.
ICE Issues Half the Detainers for Criminal Aliens Under Biden than Trump
Criminals from other countries are on the loose through the United States, thanks to the carte blanche the Biden/Harris administration has given them. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the frightening details.
Besides failing miserably to control illegal immigration at the southwest border, the Biden administration has also been shamefully derelict when it comes to interior enforcement, allowing hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens to remain in the country by issuing half the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers than the Trump administration. In one city the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) premier law enforcement agency has issued an astounding 13,398% fewer detainers under Biden, and another has seen a 1,179% drop compared to the previous administration. Seven American cities with substantial migrant populations have seen triple digit percentage drops in ICE detainers under the current president.
The hair-raising figures are included in a new report issued by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. Stats obtained from the government are broken down by jurisdiction and interactive maps identify regions of the country where ICE issued detainers for migrants embroiled in the criminal system. Information about counties, states, local law enforcement agencies and the criminal aliens for which detainers were issued is also provided. From fiscal year 2021 through the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, the Biden administration has issued 295,456 detainers to 4,305 law enforcement agencies nationwide. The Trump administration issued around twice as many detainers with the most delivered in Los Angeles, California (20,318), followed by Houston, Texas (19,289) and Phoenix, Arizona (17,294). A dozen cities received 5,000 or more detainers when Trump was commander-in-chief and 25 got 3,000 or more, according to the report.
ICE detainers are a key tool to successfully conduct interior enforcement by apprehending and deporting criminals not authorized to remain in the U.S. In fact the agency says they are “critical” to identify and ultimately remove criminal aliens who are currently in federal, state or local custody. Officially it is a notice that DHS issues to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies informing them that ICE intends to assume custody of an individual in their custody. An immigration detainer serves three key functions, according to ICE: “1) to notify an LEA [law enforcement agency] that ICE intends to assume custody of an alien in the LEA’s custody once the alien is no longer subject to the LEA’s detention; 2) to request information from an LEA about an alien’s impending release so ICE may assume custody before the alien is released from the LEA’s custody; and 3) to request that the LEA maintain custody of an alien who would otherwise be released for a period not to exceed 48 hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays) to provide ICE time to assume custody.” Not all police departments cooperate because many local governments have passed sanctuary measures that offer illegal immigrants, even those convicted of state crimes, sanctuary.
As a result, criminal aliens released inside the country are committing crimes against Americans at an alarming rate, according to a report published just weeks ago by the House Judiciary Committee. The probe found that, of the millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the United States under the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies, over 617,000 have criminal records and they are victimizing Americans and terrorizing communities throughout the nation. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s radical policies ensure that criminal illegal aliens can remain in the United States indefinitely, even after they have committed a crime,” congressional investigators found. As an example, the congressional committee offers the case of four illegal immigrants from Venezuela who viciously attacked a man on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train earlier this year. DHS released one of the men inside the U.S. in 2022 and the other three in 2023 after crossing the Mexican border. Three of the men were on pretrial release after shoplifting arrests when they committed their most recent crime in the Windy City.
“For more than three-and-a-half years, President Joe Biden and ‘border czar’ Vice President Kamala Harris have orchestrated the largest mass release of illegal aliens into the country in American history,” federal lawmakers write in the report, adding that well over seven million illegal aliens have entered the U.S. under this administration. “The results are all too predictable: cities overwhelmed, public services crushed, and communities shattered by the criminality of some illegal aliens.”
Until next week,