Asakiyume mita

Showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over temporary protected status. The justices in Washington, D.C., hear oral argument today in two challenges to the Trump administration’s attempt to end protected status for more than 350,000 Haitians and Syrians. The cases could affect all refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. because of famine, war or other humanitarian disasters. The New York Times Federal officials argue that the courts cannot countermand the executive branch’s decision to end the asylum program. Challengers argue the courts can and must review what they say are arbitrary and capricious policy choices. Scotusblog TMP Context: Haitians have fought for centuries against U.S. discrimination. The Marshall Project

Federal appeals court strikes down ICE’s mandatory detention policy. The Trump administration’s policy of holding immigration detainees indefinitely without a chance to gain release on bond is precluded under federal immigration law, the 2nd U.S. Circuit of Appeals unanimously ruled on Tuesday. ADD “If Congress meant to achieve such a radical break from the past, it would not have done so in such an indirect and ambiguous way,” wrote 2nd Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco, a nominee of President Donald Trump. The ruling contradicts an earlier ruling in a similar case by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, setting up another likely Supreme Court case. Politico Related: Read the ruling. 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Good news, bad news for the Comeys. A federal judge in New York rejected a request by the Trump administration to dismiss a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor who was ousted last year as part of the Justice Department’s purge of lawyers who investigated Trump. The New York Times Meanwhile, federal prosecutors on Tuesday again indicted her father, former FBI Director James Comey, over a social media post he made last year. He was indicted last September on a different charge but that case was quickly dismissed. The New York Times Related analysis: “Nothing in Comey's statement can be reasonably understood as conveying that he means to kill Trump.” The Volokh Conspiracy

Warehousing human beings, endangering nature. Republican officials in Roxbury, New Jersey, aren’t happy with the Trump administration’s purchase of a vacant warehouse nearby (at double its assessed value) and the plans to turn it into an immigration detention facility capable of holding hundreds or thousands of people. Bolts More: Officials in Maryland are relying on environmental laws to try to block federal officials from repurposing an empty warehouse in the western part of the state as a massive immigration detention facility. Slate The Department of Homeland Security has purchased 11 warehouses across the U.S. for $1 billion and has now begun to perform required environmental assessments. The New York Times

Immigration nation. New York’s Rohingya community is pushing state legislators to enact a law that would help protect immigrants from the mistreatment Nurul Amin Shah Alam received before his death in February. He’s the Buffalo man with mental illness who spoke no English and who was dropped off by federal immigration agents outside a closed coffee shop in brutal weather conditions. The Guardian Federal immigration officials are now targeting Lao immigrants in Washington. Longtime residents of the U.S., who have checked in with ICE for years, are now being detained and, in some cases, quickly deported. KING-TV ICE arrests of Cubans have skyrocketed in the past year as green-card approvals drop. Miami Herald

New York City police officials stymied proposed reforms to the city’s controversial gang database. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch recently praised the database. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who criticized the database’s racial disparities and other problems while running for office, now says it should be reformed, not abolished. The City

Officials find a pattern of sexual abuse by staff in residential group homes in Massachusetts. There were at least 20 instances of workers engaging in sexual misconduct with children and young adults from 2022 to 2025. The Boston Globe

Florida law prohibits companies that are convicted of felonies from having public contracts, yet Armor Health, a company that provides healthcare to people in jails across the state, still has such a contract despite a past conviction relating to the death of a prisoner. ProPublica

Dawn Deaner thinks it’s time for a different perspective on the bench in Tennessee. A former public defender in Nashville is running for office as a judge of the criminal court in Davidson County, which hasn’t had a public defender on its court in 30 years. The Watch

The U.S. Supreme Court this week upheld the federal racketeering convictions of former Ohio Republican House Speaker Larry Householder and an ex-lobbyist implicated in a $60 million bribery scheme. The Associated Press More: Householder’s lawyer said on Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of his case that his client would seek a presidential pardon after the federal court rejected his appeal. Columbus Dispatch

The Trump administration and its firing squads. “We should not mince words about this. It has nothing to do with the Eighth Amendment. It has nothing to do with the supply of drugs, or anything else. They like it because it’s the same kind of video game brutality that they like in every other context of this administration’s barbarism.” Mother Jones TMP Context: The return of the firing squad? A handful of states now allow that mode of execution. The Marshall Project

Missing the point following another assassination attempt. The White House wants you to think that the response to another act of gun violence is to build a ballroom to shield elite political leaders rather than make it harder for some people to own a gun. The Boston Globe

“The Grand Conspiracy Gospel According to Joseph diGenova.” The former federal prosecutor who once tormented the Clintons now is poised, thanks to the Trump administration, to investigate a grand conspiracy theory he’s been touting for years. No one should have confidence that this will be a good-faith effort. Lawfare

The FBI director is a national embarrassment. Kash Patel “has so mismanaged the bureau, both on purpose — firing, demoting, and transferring vital personnel who happened to work on investigations that he considered political or anti-Trump — as well as simply through his own personal foibles that he’s alienated a workforce that is overwhelmingly conservative and aligned politically with Trump.” Doomsday Scenario

There is no presumption of innocence when there is no legal representation. A public defense crisis in Oregon leaves people locked away in pretrial detention for months or longer waiting for a lawyer to take their case. The Guardian

Writing as therapy for a daughter grieving her father. Kate Crane’s dad went missing in 1987. She’s spent nearly four decades in and out of a state of anger and sorrow at his murder, and recently wrote a book about her ordeal. “Tending to my sentences was alchemical. If I wasn’t cooling the magma, perhaps I was crafting sturdier channels for it. And if the anger refuses to abate, I guess I’ll write more,” Crane says. Slate

Prosecutorial misconduct leads to another wrongful conviction. A New York judge this week overturned the murder conviction of a man who spent 25 years in prison after prosecutors withheld evidence from defense attorneys at trial. Harry Ruiz maintained his innocence for decades. “I feel like I can finally breathe again,” he said on Monday as he left the courthouse with his family. ABC News/The Associated Press

Is this the final week in the destructive life of Purdue Pharma? A federal judge on Tuesday meted out a criminal sentence to the company that is part of a massive settlement between the opioid maker and its many victims. The company could be dissolved by the end of the week. The Associated Press TMP Context: Guess who is tracking your prescription drugs? Your doctor, your pharmacist and the police. The Marshall Project

Rebecca Good, the widow of Renee Good, wants the car back. Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent on a Minneapolis street earlier this year. Federal officials have still not returned the vehicle she was driving when she was killed. Federal and state law enforcement agencies appear to be arguing over what should happen to the car. The Minnesota Star Tribune

It’s so tragically common that there is even a phrase for it. “Family annihilation,” or familicide, involves the killing or attempted killing of multiple family members. The killing of eight children by a Louisiana man earlier this month is just the latest example. The New York Times