Vik Malhotra

TURN THE VOLUME UP!!! 🙌🏽🗽

“No more will New York be a city in which you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election!” ✊🏽

Happening this Wednesday at SCOTUS ahead of oral argument in Callais.

Trump Officials Seek to Bring First White Afrikaner Refugees to U.S. Next Week

Black and Brown refugees need not apply. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/w...

🚨UPDATE: New evidence filed by the ACLU last night shows that the Trump administration is going forward with more Alien Enemies Act deportations in seeming violation of the Supreme Court's clear command that people be provided a "meaningful" opportunity to seek judicial review.

WOW. One of the Venezuelans whom Kristi Noem tried to render to El Salvador's slave prison managed to avoid removal and was able to make it to immigration court, and you'll never guess what happened: THE GOVERNMENT GAVE NO EVIDENCE OF HIS GANG MEMBERSHIP. Due process ftw

Today @vanhollen.senate.gov was denied entry to the same prison.

Salvadoran President Claims He Lacks Humanity To Return Wrongly Deported Man WASHINGTON—During a visit with President Donald Trump at the White House, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele claimed Monday that he “lacks the humanity” to return wrongly deported legal U.S. resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to America. “How can I return an innocent man to the United States when I don’t have the ability to feel […]

“How can I return an innocent man to the United States when I don’t have the ability to feel empathy or compassion?” said Nayib Bukele
theonion.com/salvado...

Bukele, Abrego Garcia, and Red Lines Emergency Triad: Are we now a country of political prisoners and gulags?

Basically: I don’t think people understand that 36 hours from now it’s possible that America will have a formalized system for abducting enemies of the regime and stashing them in foreign gulags, indefinitely.

www.thebulwark.com/p/bukele-abr...

BIG UPDATE TODAY: This afternoon, the ACLU filed a new "class action habeas" lawsuit in New York challenging the Alien Enemies Act removals. They are seeking a temporary restraining order which would basically replicate the same thing they previously had with Judge Boasberg's order.

BREAKING: A federal court ordered Mahmoud Khalil's lawsuit should proceed in New Jersey instead of Louisiana, 1,500 miles from his family.

This is an important step towards justice.

‘Mission South Africa’: How Trump Is Offering White Afrikaners Refugee Status The United States has banned most refugees, including 20,000 people who were already ready to travel to the United States before President Trump took office. But Mr. Trump is making one exception.

Like millions of others, my family’s story in America began when the US ended racist immigration quotas in 1965. That’s how my parents were able to immigrate here from India in the late 1960s and I was born soon after. Sixty years later, we are returning to an official policy of white supremacy.

“Trump’s new Executive Order underscores how far removed this President, Attorney General and Administration are from our nation’s Constitution and bedrock values. Our liberties depend on lawyers’ willingness to represent unpopular people and causes, including in matters adverse to the Federal Government. An attack on lawyers who perform this work is inexcusable and despicable. Our profession owes every client zealous legal representation without fear of retribution, regardless of their political affiliation or ability to pay. We encourage law firm leaders to sign on to an amicus effort in support of Perkins Coie’s challenge to the Administration’s executive order targeting the firm, and to resist the Administration’s erosion of the rule of law.” – John Keker, Robert Van Nest, Elliot Peters, Laurie Carr Mims, and the Keker, Van Nest & Peters Partnership

Our first post is a big one...Statement from Keker, Van Nest & Peters on Trump’s Latest Executive Order “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court.”

What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced Exclusive photos of the arrival of Venezuelan detainees deported from the U.S.

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands After Federal Funds Are Stripped The administration has moved to cut $400 million in federal funding to the university without changes to its policies and rules.

Columbia’s capitulation is so disappointing. No statute authorized the Trump administration to make these demands, and many of them implicate or encroach on the constitutional freedoms of students, faculty, and the University itself. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/n...

Paul Weiss and Columbia are taking exactly the wrong actions in acceding to Trump, and they are among the entities most well-positioned to fight back.

These are legacy-shaming decisions by the leadership of both, and those far less powerful will now, and surely in short order, pay the price.

The Black voters are represented by @LDF and @aclu.org among others. At issue is how states can legally consider race in drawing electoral districts. Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais (intervenors) arguments begin at 10am ET on Monday, March 24th.

In a state where 1/3 of the population is Black, Ashley Shelton, CEO of Power Coalition for Equity & Justice, said: “Black voters finally [felt] hope that their voices [were] heard equally at the ballot box because we achieved a fair map. We can’t turn back after this [past] election.”

The Black voters who won fair representation have intervened in this case to protect their victory. SCOTUS will hear arguments from BOTH the state and the Black voters in defense of the current maps against this effort by the white plaintiffs to upend the current congressional district lines.

After Black voters prevailed in an earlier case, compelling the state to draw a second majority-Black district (out of six total) to ensure that their votes were not diluted in violation of the VRA, a group of white voters sued in another court to nullify the earlier ruling under the EPC.

SCOTUS alert: Next Monday, the Court will hear argument on whether Louisiana’s congressional maps, drawn to comply with the VRA, run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause. The latest chapter in a protracted effort by Black voters to fight for fair representation in the state. wedrawthelinesla.org

Pathetic.

Administration’s Details on Deportation Flights ‘Woefully Insufficient,’ Judge Says In an angry order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, told the Trump administration to explain why he should not find that officials had violated his instructions for the flights to return to the United St...

The government must be transparent about whether it complied with a judge's order blocking the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants without due process.

President Trump cannot bypass the Constitution.

Shoot first, think later? 🤔 How much longer before swing-district Republicans stop worshipping at the House of Elon?⌛️

“The future is going to be worse than the past if we do not let the people who represent us know that it is our country… We can change the government, and we will.” ✊🏽 James Baldwin, offering both a warning & a hope in 1963. Photos from New York Public Library collection, on display now.

ARUN SUBRAMANIAN, United States District Judge: The Court is in receipt of plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order. Without making any final determination on the relief requested, but to maintain the status quo, provide an opportunity for the defendants to respond to plaintiffs' motion, allow the parties to meet and confer in good faith to narrow the issues in dispute, and for the issues to be aired at a hearing, the Court ORDERS as follows: 1. The Court will hold a hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on March 25, 2025 at 2:00 PM in Courtroom 15A, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007. 2. Defendants shall file any response to plaintiffs' motion by March 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM. 3. In advance of the hearing, plaintiffs and defendants shall meet and confer in good faith to determine whether any part of the requested interim relief is unopposed. 4. Pending the March 25 hearing, the Columbia Defendants are ENJOINED from 1) providing, directly or indirectly, the records outlined at Dkt. 15-1 at 6 to Congress or any federal agency; and 2) releasing the names or any other identifying information of any student included in the records outlined at Dkt. 15-1 at 6. 5. Plaintiffs shall serve this order, a copy of plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order, and all supporting papers on all defendants by March 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM. SO ORDERED. Dated: March 20, 2025 New York, New York ARUN SUBRAMANIAN United States District Judge

Document 15-1 Filed 03/19/25 Page 6 of 7 Please produce the following items no later than 12:00 p.m. ET on February 27, 2025: 1. All disciplinary records, including the complete case files and all UJB records, relating to the following incidents. Please also detail all past disciplinary charges, proposed sanctions, and enacted sanctions for individuals implicated in the incidents below: a. The April 30, 2024, takeover and occupation of Hamilton Hall; b. The September 3, 2024, obstruction of Columbia's entrance, harassment of Jewish students, and related acts of vandalism; c. The September 4, 2024, indoor protest of a class taught by former Secretary Hillary Clinton; d. The October 7, 2024, protest, at which students explicitly called for terrorism, glorified Hamas, and harassed Jewish students; e. The November 9-10, 2024, "Hind's House" exhibition, which instructed attendees on how to violate Columbia rules and promoted terrorism and the exclusion of Jews; f. The November 21, 2024, incident in which students marched on Columbia's Hillel harassed Jewish students, and called for terrorism and for the exclusion of Jews; g. The December 9, 2024, assault on a Columbia University student at an unauthorized protest sponsored by CUAD; h. Threats and incitement directed at Columbia University trustees, including the December 15, 2024, graffiti targeting former Secretary Jeh Johnson with a Hamas inverted red triangle symbol; The January 21, 2025, disruption of a History of Modern Israel class in which flyers were distributed threatening and inciting violence toward, including murder of, Jews; j. The January 21, 2025, outdoor protest in which flyers threatening and inciting violence toward, including murder of, Jews were distributed and statements calling for terrorism were made; and k. The January 29, 2025, antisemitic acts of vandalism at the School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia Business School.

NEW: Judge Subramanian orders Columbia not to provide any student names or disciplinary records related to pro-Palestinian campus protests to a GOP-led US House committee while the court considers a temporary restraining order. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

NEW! Sworn declarations filed last night confirm the Trump admin sent INNOCENT people to rot in prison El Salvador, including a professional soccer player jailed and tortured by the Maduro regime, who entered this country LEGALLY to seek asylum, and who has NO CRIMINAL RECORD in either country.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is a referendum on Elon Musk “We'll find out whether Musk's millions are more powerful than the fury that Musk provokes among voters.”

Early voting begins today in pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Elon Musk spending $13 million to flip court & elect MAGA judge. After buying Washington he now wants to buy the states

"This race is first referendum on Musk-ism” says @benwikler.bsky.social

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

NEW today from @miamiherald.com: more men sent to El Salvador on Saturday have been identified by their families, including a 27-year-old who entered legally at a port of entry in 2023 through the CBP One app and a 29-year-old father of a baby born here last year. Neither have any criminal record.

Mahmoud Khalil's case is a watershed moment for everyone's right to speak truth to power.

The government cannot be allowed to detain people in retaliation for their political advocacy.