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Abrego Garcia’s Wrongful Deportation Case More About Individual Rights Than Trump’s Foreign Policy

Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed that judges who order the administration to take action to bring deported Venezuelans back from the El Salvador prison where the U.S. sent them are meddling in the conduct of foreign policy. “The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by President Donald J. Trump − not by a court − and no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on April 14. His comments refer to cases including that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran man who was deported to El Salvador on March 15, 2025, without any due process.

US Intends To Proceed With Arizona Copper Mine, Justices Told

The U.S. government says there has been no doubt that it intends to proceed with a land exchange in Arizona for a planned multibillion-dollar copper mine, telling the U.S. Supreme Court that its recent notice of publication of a final environmental impact statement for the project does not constitute urgent review. There is nothing about the 60-day notice, which was filed in an Arizona federal court and published in the Federal Register on April 17, that supports claims by the Apache Stronghold that there may have been some uncertainty about the federal government's intent to move forward with the land transfer, the government told the high court in a Monday letter.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Denies Mumia Abu Jamal’s Appeal

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - On March 26, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal permission to appeal a September 2024 Pennsylvania Superior Court denial of his latest petition to reverse his 1982 conviction. The Supreme Court ruling ends Mumia’s state court challenge at this time. Mumia’s sixth petition was based on credible new evidence of prosecutorial misconduct — including Brady violations based on incentives given to the state’s key witnesses Cynthia White and Robert Chobert to give false testimony. The new evidence, found buried in storage boxes in a remote area of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office and turned over to Mumia’s lawyers in December 2021 also included evidence of racial bias in jury selection, a Batson violation.

Edinburgh Came Out Against Court’s Roll-Back Of Trans Women’s Rights

On Saturday 19 April, around 2,000 protesters turned out in Edinburgh against the UK Supreme Court’s roll-back of transgender women’s rights. Members of the public marched from the foot of The Mound to the UK government building to rail against the disgraceful far-right-fueled ruling. Together, gender queer communities and allies galvanised a highly energised crowd against the Supreme Court ruling. Throughout, the rhetoric was one of encouraging solidarity within the trans community, rather than begging the government for help. This included a call to autonomously establish sources of “Food, Housing, Medicine and Trans Joy”.

Supreme Court Weakens Rules On Discharging Raw Sewage Into Water

The United States Supreme Court has voted five to four to weaken rules that govern how much pollution is discharged into the country’s water supply, undermining the 1972 Clean Water Act. The case involved San Francisco suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the city was found to have violated the terms of a permit required for the discharge of wastewater pollution into the Pacific Ocean, reported The Washington Post. San Francisco officials argued that the EPA’s authority had been exceeded due to vague permit rules that made it impossible to tell when a line had been crossed.

How Movements Can Make Courts Play A Role In Defending Democracy

Courts are often seen as a last line of defense for democracy. In the month since Donald Trump took office, over 60 legal challenges have been filed against his administration’s executive actions. Yet many Americans are concerned with how U.S. courts will fare in the new tests to their role as defenders of democracy. What if the courts are compromised or politicized? Do they still have a role and can they still be influenced? In my country, Zimbabwe, our parliament is gearing up to change the Constitution to extend the president’s term of office (and its own term) indefinitely, effectively abolishing the need for future elections.

Trump’s Felony Conviction Appeal Will Show How Fully He’s Above The Law

Donald Trump has always maintained that the laws don’t apply to him. But he failed to convince New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to delay sentencing him this month following the May 2024 jury verdict finding him guilty of 34 state felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in New York v. Trump. Trump appealed Merchan’s denial of his motion to put off the sentencing. Justice Ellen Gesmer, a New York appeals court judge, affirmed Merchan’s ruling that the sentencing should proceed. She was not convinced that presidents-elect enjoy presidential immunity.

Major Win For Youth Climate Activists In Montana Supreme Court

The Montana Supreme Court upheld a landmark victory on Wednesday, affirming a lower court’s decision that the energy policies of the state violated youth activists’ constitutional rights to a clean environment. The ruling in Held v. Montana last August invalidated a law stopping regulators from taking into consideration the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions when issuing permits for new fossil fuel projects, reported The Guardian. The six-to-one decision was the first state supreme court decision of its kind in the United States.

Supreme Court Hears Gender-Affirming Care Case

Washington, D.C. — Transgender advocates converged at the Supreme Court for the oral arguments of U.S. vs Skrmetti, a case that will decide the fate of access to gender-affirming care for trans minors. Unicorn Riot was on the ground covering a rally near the U.S. Supreme Court Building steps Wednesday morning. The U.S. vs. Skrmetti case began in Tennessee, with the ACLU and Lambda Legal collective representing L.W. and her parents, Samantha and Brian Williams. Tennessee passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in February 2023, which was signed into law in March of that year.

The Right Believes It Has Supreme Court Votes To Overturn Labor Law

The foundational 1935 labor law protecting workers is unconstitutional, according to major corporations and right-wing zealots who believe they have enough votes on the Supreme Court to overturn it. In the latest sign that anti-union forces will doggedly press the matter, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from processing any allegations of employer violations of workers’ rights. The National Review hailed the decision as ​“A Welcome Blow to the NLRB.” This is after Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a similar injunction against the NLRB before the Western District of Texas in July.

Maryland Supreme Court Decision Favors The Bethesda African Cemetery

On Friday, August 30, the Supreme Court of Maryland issued its decision in the case of Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition v. Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County. The case, which began in the Circuit Court of Maryland in 2021, deals with the issue of whether or not the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC), a government agency responsible for building, developing, financing, owning, and managing low and moderate-income housing, could legally sell an African Cemetery and the remains of African people without permission from descendants or the court. For decades, Montgomery County, the HOC and the State of Maryland have covered-up the desecration of Moses African Cemetery and the state-sponsored violent destruction of an African “Maroon” community in collusion with white supremacist groups, such as the ‘white caps’ and the KKK.

Apache Stronghold Takes Case Against Copper Mine To The Supreme Court

After a two-month pilgrimage across the nation, Apache Stronghold formally presented its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in a final bid to stop a massive copper mine from obliterating one of the Apache peoples' most sacred sites. The high court was the last hope for the group after the full 29-justice 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to review the case. Opponents of the mine say the case will be a test of how the court and the government view the religious rights of Indigenous people. Apache Stronghold in April asked the full Ninth Circuit panel to review its lawsuit against the U.S. and Resolution Copper. That move followed an opinion issued by a panel of 11 appeals court judges that ruled narrowly against Apache Stronghold in March, about a year after oral arguments.

BACC Declares Victory At The Supreme Court Of Maryland

On Friday August 30, the Supreme Court of Maryland issued its decision in the case of Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition v.  Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County. In its finding, the court acknowledges what BACC has been asserting for years: Moses African Cemetery “was a historic Black burial place that contains interments of many individuals, including formerly enslaved persons and their families” and “it appears likely that human remains are still interred in the land today, which is currently part of a property known as the Westwood Tower Apartments.” In light of the Maryland Supreme Court decision, we call on all elected officials to demand an immediate cessation of all desecration and erasure of Black History at the Westwood Towers site. 

Perdue Seeks To Dismantle Tribunals For Whistleblower Complaints

Poultry manufacturer Perdue Farms Inc. sued the United States Labor Department and whistleblower Craig Watts, who has pursued litigation through the department’s administrative process for nearly a decade. The corporation now maintains that this administrative process is unconstitutional. “Their suit could demolish whistleblower protections across issues [including] food safety, railroad and aviation safety, shareholder fraud, and environmental protection,” warned the Government Accountability Project (GAP), which represents Watts, a former Perdue chicken grower. Administrative proceedings in Watts’ case were previously scheduled to begin on April 14, 2025.

Apache Stronghold On Journey Of Prayer To The Supreme Court

On July 11th, 2024, the Apache Stronghold started the journey of prayer to the Supreme Court to stop the shattering of human existence and to protect Mother Earth. We have traveled, held ceremonies and gathered prayers from Tribes, Communities, Churches, and people in support of saving Oak Flat and religious freedom and protections for all. We began in the Northwest, Westcoast, South, mid-west to the East to gather in Washington DC at the Supreme court on September 11. We are appealing a lower court ruling that would have allowed the total destruction of Oak Flat by allowing the land to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a foreign owned company, owned by BHP and Rio Tinto.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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