DELEITURAS

The Supreme Court barred enforcement of a Louisiana law called the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act on a five to four vote Thursday night.

Chief Justice joined the high court’s liberal bloc to prohibit the law’s implementation, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh led the conservatives in dissent. The act was scheduled to take effect on Friday.

The Louisiana measure provides that physicians who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Abortion advocates say the law is identical to a Texas regulation which the Supreme Court struck down in 2016 in a case called Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

Justice Samuel Alito delayed implementation of the Louisiana law by one week on Feb. 1. That order, called administrative stay, was necessary so that the justices could review court filings from each party. Alito hears emergency petitions which arise out of the 5th Circuit.

A federal trial judge found the law unconstitutional in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Texas case. But the 5th Circuit reversed, finding that the law created a tangible (but limited) benefit without seriously inhibiting abortion access. Pro-choice groups counter that the measure will leave just one abortion provider in the state, making it a pretext to undermine abortion access.

This is breaking news. This post will be updated.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials claim a deadly shootout between an illegal immigrant and a sheriff’s deputy could have been prevented if California sanctuary laws allowed them to do their job.

A deadly shootout on Sunday took place between a cop and a Mexican national. During a routine traffic stop in Napa County, California, Javier Hernandez Morales, 48, attempted to shoot Napa County Sheriff’s Deputy Riley Jarecki. Jarecki was able to maneuver away and return fire, killing Hernandez Morales at the scene. Footage of the shootout was captured on the deputy sheriff’s bodycamera.

Hernandez Morales, who had been living in the U.S. illegally, was no stranger to law enforcement. He been deported back to his home country of Mexico twice in 2007 and once more in 2010. However, since that time, local law enforcement officials refused to work with ICE on deporting him again, despite various crimes.

ICE lodged four different detainers for Hernandez Morales relating to battery of a peace officer, suspicion of driving while intoxicated, selling liquor to a minor and probation violations. The detainers, according to ICE, were sent to Napa County Jail in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and anther was issued to Sonoma County Jail in 2016.

Staff honored none of the detainers, allowing Hernandez Morales to leave the county jails and remain in the U.S.

“It’s unfortunate that our law enforcement partners and the community are subjected to dangerous consequences because of inflexible state laws that protect criminal aliens,” ICE said in a scathing statement against California’s sanctuary laws.

“This incident may have been prevented if ICE had been notified about any of the multiple times Hernandez-Morales was released from local custody over the last few years. This is an impactful, scary example of how public safety is affected by laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies’ ability to cooperate with ICE,” the statement continued.

ICE was referencing legislation then-Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2017 that largely prohibits local law enforcement from working with federal imitation officials. The law has earned California the distinction as a “sanctuary state.”

It does not appear the deadly incident will change how Napa County law enforcement handles illegal immigrants. A spokeswoman said the County will continue to abide by state laws.

“Compliance with state law is what Napa County will, in fact, follow through upon, whether there are changes in the future that change things but as of right now we do need to comply with state law and that is what our policy reflects,” Napa County Supervisor Belia Ramos said in a statement Thursday.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday the University of Iowa violated First Amendment rights after deregistering a student Christian group.

Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC) stopped receiving recognition from the public university in November 2017 due to the organization’s statement of faith, which the university found “unwelcoming,” according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen Friday.

BLinC was created by the students in the university’s Tippie College of Business. The purpose of the group was to provide a space for Christian students to network, hold group discussions and “keep Christ first in the fast-paced business world,” the DOJ’s statement of interest said. Leaders in the Christian group were required to sign and follow the statement of faith, which included a belief that sexual relations should only occur “between a man and a wife in the lifelong covenant of marriage,” and “every person should embrace, not reject, their God-given sex.”

The university deregistered the group over the faith statement and it claimed it made LGBT people unwelcome and therefore was exclusive, a DOJ news release reported. BLinC filed a lawsuit against the university in December 2017.

“The University of Iowa in this case de-registered Business Leaders in Christ because university officials did not like its message,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “That is forbidden by the Constitution.”

Over a dozen religious-affiliated groups at the University of Iowa were deregistered over the summer as well, nonprofit law firm Becket Fund for Religious Liberty reported. The Sikh Awareness Club, Chinese Student Christian Fellowship, Imam Mahdi organization and Latter-day Saint Student Association were some of the groups kicked off campus, though they were later temporarily reinstated.

A similar case to BLinC was filed by the InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship in August after the group was de-registered in July.

“The University of Iowa does not tolerate discrimination of any kind in accordance with federal and state law,” Jeneane Beck, University of Iowa assistant vice president for external relations, said, the Press-Citizen reported.

The University of Iowa did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The U.S. Marine Corps revealed Wednesday that Native American tribal elder Nathan Phillips who accused Catholic school boys of bigotry is not a war veteran.

The USMC released details of Phillips’ service record in a statement, showing that he previously went by the name of Nathaniel R. Stanard and served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1972 to 1976 as a refrigerator technician and anti-tank missileman, according to Military Times. Phillips was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, but never deployed and left the Marine Corps at the rank of E-1, or private.

Phillips also reportedly has a criminal history. A May 9, 1974 article in The Lincoln Star reported that Phillips, then 19 years old, was “charged with escaping from the Nebraska Penal Complex where he was confined May 3,” according to The Washington Examiner. He also reportedly had a charge of destruction of property dropped in 1973 and pleaded guilty to assault on June 19, 1974, for which he paid a fine of $200.

Phillips later reportedly served one year of probation for underage possession of alcohol and was charged in 1978 with driving without a license.

Phillips styled himself to the media as “a Vietnam times veteran” with an “honorable discharge” and claimed in 2017 that he faced persecution when he came home from serving in the Marines.

“When I come home, those times, I got spit on, actually spit on, and called a baby-killer,” Phillips said.

Phillips also claimed that he served as a “recon ranger” in an April interview with Vogue.

“You know, I’m from Vietnam times. I’m what they call a recon ranger,” he said. “That was my role.”

The information provided by the USMC directly contradicts Phillips’ claims. Misleading statements about his military service are not the only deceptions on Phillips’ part.

Phillips has changed several details of his account of the confrontation with Covington Catholic High School students at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., during the March for Life on Jan. 18. He initially claimed the Kentucky students confronted, surrounded, and mocked him and his Native American colleagues as he was on his way to the Lincoln Memorial. Videos of the encounter showed that it was Phillips who in fact approached the students and confronted them.

Phillips altered his account once the full videos of the encounter emerged, saying that he tried to intervene when he saw the students verbally attack four “old black individuals.”

The videos also showed that claim to be false, as several members of a black supremacist group called the Black Hebrew Israelites instigated the confrontation by hurling racial epithets and profanities at the students while they were waiting for buses to pick them up.

Phillips nevertheless suggested the students should be expelled from their school.

Details as to how Phillips was discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve have not yet been confirmed.

The first shipment of humanitarian aid crossed the border from Brazil to Venezuela Saturday, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared, but getting aid to the people of Venezuela continues to be beyond difficult.

“This is a great accomplishment, Venezuela!” Guaido wrote on Twitter Saturday.

Guaido, a 35-year-old lawmaker and president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself the country’s interim leader in January as conditions deteriorated under socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido’s supporters are trying to bring aid shipments from Colombia and Brazil into Venezuela, but Maduro’s troops are blocking trucks both coming and going along parts of the border. Video footage from Friday showed Venezuelan soldiers erecting barricades and brawling with Guaido’s supporters to keep trucks from exiting the country to collect aid.

Meanwhile, some soldiers posted on the Venezuelan border have defected from Maduro’s control. A social media video appears to show four soldiers denouncing Maduro and supporting Guaido, who has promised them “amnesty,” reported BBC.

Guaido was in Colombia Saturday seeing off shipments of aid to Venezuela with Colombian president Ivan Duque, reported CBS News. Thousands of volunteers will help get the aid into Venezuela, he said according to BBC.

U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Maduro and recognized Guaido in January, as did other countries, including Brazil and Canada.

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton made headlines when he was spotted carrying a notepad with “5,000 troops to Colombia” scribbled on it Jan. 28. Colombia and Venezuela border one another.

Trump emphasized “all options” are open when dealing with the situation in Venezuela.

“We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open,” he said during a speech at Florida International University Monday.

Bolton’s Twitter feed showed he was monitoring the situation in Venezuela closely Saturday.

“The U.S. has provided critically needed aid for the people of Venezuela,” Bolton wrote on Twitter Saturday. “Now is the time for Venezuelan military allow to aid through the border. As Interim President Guaido said today ‘Those who accompany us to save the lives of Venezuelans are true patriots.’”

The people of Venezuela have faced economic hardship and crackdowns on their freedom under Maduro, who succeeded infamous socialist dictator Hugo Chavez.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul said there will be 10 Republican Senators who vote against the resolution to terminate President Donald Trump’s national emergency for border wall funding Monday afternoon.

Paul told a group of reporters on Capitol Hill that he thinks there will be 10 Senators who vote against Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro’s resolution, which the Texas Democrat believes will would end Trump’s national emergency.

This comes as Paul said he will join a group of three Republicans who have expressed their concerns with Trump’s declaration for a national emergency, saying they do not believe the president should be allowed to override Congress to such a degree Saturday.

“I can’t vote to give extraconstitutional powers to the President,” Paul said, to the Bowling Green Daily News Saturday. “I can’t vote to give the President the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” he continued. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.”

In the group are Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.

Murkowski said Tuesday she would vote for the resolution, making it clear that the bill will pass the Senate due to support from these Republicans.

Collins said Wednesday she supports a lawsuit challenging Trump’s national emergency, adding that she plans to vote for the congressional resolution.

Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced the resolution Friday to block Trump’s national emergency that could allow him to build a wall on the southern border.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to her colleagues Thursday, telling them they need to “move swiftly to pass this bill.”

This comes just days after Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 hopeful, listed off a number of issues for which she would declare a national emergency if elected president, including “climate change, gun violence, student loan debt — right off the top. That’s what we ought to be working on.”

Trump will still have the option to veto the resolution if passed by the Senate.

A group of top House Republicans is asking the Justice Department for details of an investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton and Trump-Russia probes that is being conducted by U.S. Attorney John Huber.

In a letter sent Monday, the Republicans pressed Huber, the U.S. attorney for Utah, for details about witnesses and documents reviewed as part of the investigation.

Almost no details have emerged about Huber’s investigation since he was appointed in March 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the FBI’s handling of the politically-charged investigations of Clinton and Trump.

Sessions appointed Huber as a compromise to Republican pressure to appoint a special counsel to investigate the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

“During the course of our extensive investigation we have interviewed more than a dozen current and former DOJ and FBI personnel, and were surprised to hear none of these potentially informative witnesses testified to speaking with you,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins and North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows wrote to Huber.

Republicans have accused the FBI and Justice Department of misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in applications for surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain four warrants against Page.

Jordan, Collins and Meadows are asking Huber to identify which witnesses he has interviewed as part of his investigation. They are also asking for details of the number of documents that have been reviewed in the investigation, including the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) sued the Trump administration Monday for “essential” government employees being “forced” to work without pay.

Many federal employees designated as “essential” personnel are working through the government shutdown but may miss regular paychecks until Congress and President Donald Trump agree on a spending package.

The AFGE suit, brought on behalf of two federal prison workers, asserts that “forcing” federal employees to work through the shutdown without regular paychecks is “inhumane” and illegal.

“Approximately 420,000 federal employees are continuing to work, but don’t know when they will get their next paychecks,” Heidi Burakiewicz, a partner at the law firm of Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, said in a statement. “These employees still need to pay childcare expenses, buy gas, and incur other expenses to go to work every day and yet, they are not getting paid. It is a blatant violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”

Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch is the law firm representing AFGE.

The federal government went into a partial shutdown on Dec. 22, 2018, and has continued into the new year. Republicans and Democrats are fighting over funding for Trump’s $5.7 billion wall along the border with Mexico, which the president says is necessary to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is leading the Democratic resistance to funding the border wall, has called Trump’s proposal “expensive and ineffective” and promised to kill and bill that would fund it.

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will allow President Donald Trump to temporarily enforce an order barring transgender individuals from serving in the military.

As is typical of orders of this nature, the Court gave no reason for its decision, though Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan noted their dissent.

The Trump administration first petitioned the Supreme Court to decide directly on the legality of the trans-soldiers ban, after federal trial judges in California, Washington, D.C. and Washington state issued orders prohibiting its enforcement. The plaintiffs in those lawsuits argue the policy violates a range of constitutional rights including the First Amendment, equal protection, and due process.

The government said the Court’s intervention was necessary because the lower court decision “require the military to maintain a policy that, in its own professional judgment, risks undermining readiness, disrupting unit cohesion, and weakening military effectiveness and lethality.”

Subsequent to that request, the Department of Justice filed a second petition proposing an alternative: in the event the Court denied the first request, the administration suggested that the justices allow enforcement of the ban while litigation continues in the lower courts. The Court granted that request Tuesday.

The president abruptly announced on Twitter that the military would not permit trans personnel to serve in the military. Thereafter, former Defense Secretary James Mattis convened a panel of military experts to conduct an independent review of the subject. Their findings served as the basis of Mattis’ February 2018 memo which implemented Trump’s request.

That memo provides that individuals with a history of gender dysphoria — a clinical term referring to anxiety triggered by the conflict between one’s biological sex and the gender with which they identify — may enlist provided they are willing to serve in their biological sex and have not suffered gender dysphoria for a continuous three year period prior to recruitment. Active personnel who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria may continue to serve provided they do so in their biological sex.

This is breaking news. This post will be updated

DONNA, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers intercepted a substantial amount of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of more than $3,000,000 in two enforcement actions over a four-day span.

“I applaud the CBP officers for these two exceptional narcotic interceptions as they illustrate the multilayered enforcement effected by CBP,” said Port Director Walter Weaver, Progreso Port of Entry. “Intercepting illegal drugs from entering the United States and keeping them from finding their way to the streets of our communities remains one of CBP’s top priorities.”

The first seizure occurred on Saturday, Mar. 16, when CBP officers assigned to the Donna International Crossing referred a 1999 Ford F-150 driven by a 40-year-old female Mexican citizen from Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, for a secondary examination.  In secondary, a physical inspection by CBP officers led to the discovery of 38 packages containing over 77 pounds of alleged methamphetamine concealed within the vehicle.

The second seizure occurred on Tuesday, Mar. 19, when a CBP officer referred a 1997 Ford F-150 driven by a 22-year-old male U.S. citizen from McAllen, Texas, and his 18-year-old brother, also of McAllen, Texas for a secondary inspection. Upon a non-intrusive imaging examination and physical inspection, CBP officers discovered 39 packages containing 78.66 pounds of alleged methamphetamine concealed within the vehicle.

The combined narcotics have an estimated street value of $3,123,477.

CBP OFO seized the narcotics and vehicles.  The drivers and occupant from both interceptions were arrested and the cases were turned over to the custody of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents for further investigation. For more information about CBP, please click on the attached link.