U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema didn’t rule on the government’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the fund’s formation and operation, but she explicitly rejected the argument that the case cannot proceed because its claims are moot.
“The Department of Justice is relying on faulty databases and attempting to find non-citizen voters and other voters who might be ineligible,” an ACLU attorney said. “And we also know that the Division of Elections has been undertaking non-routine measures in activating voters based on known faulty citizenship information and outside of their authority granted in the Alaska statutes.”
“The Trump administration is weaponizing federal research funding to suppress disfavored views, pressuring scientists to censor their work or risk losing funding for research that might produce results that don’t conform to the administration’s ideology,” ACLU Racial Justice Program attorney Olga Akselrod said.
Judge Randolph Contreras on Tuesday sided with David Streever, a New York resident who accused the Trump administration of violating his First Amendment rights by sending federal agents to his home in June with a “warning notice,” claiming that he had issued a threat against former ICE director Todd Lyons.
Khalili says that the harassment persuaded him to stop observing immigration agents “for fear that the federal government would come to their home and arrest him in front of his children,” a concern shared by his wife.
Not all of the states named as defendants have indicated how they will respond; however, both Arkansas and Utah have signaled that they may be willing to cooperate with the administration.
In the meantime, the judge found that the “Presidential and Eleventh Amendment immunity defenses” raised by the Justice Department, representing Trump and his library foundation, must be resolved before any headway can be made toward discovery.
“The presence of federal force at the polls interferes with the smooth administration of elections at the local level,” the lawsuit alleges. “It disrupts voting and makes it more difficult for state and local election officials and law enforcement to do their jobs by making polling places spaces of confrontation.”
ICE, the lawsuit alleges, currently adheres to a policy of “arrest first, ask questions later,” potentially in contravention of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as multiple federal statutes.
“Indeed, when Ms. Oyer declined to disregard her duties in order to perform a favor for her politically-appointed superiors and President Trump, she was summarily terminated,” the lawsuit says.