Daily Update | June 22, 2018
Jeffrey Stein // 6/22/18 //
Federal authorities have subpoenaed the publisher of the National Enquirer for records related to its $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model for the rights to her story alleging an affair with Donald Trump. House Republican leaders postponed a vote on a “compromise” immigration proposal until Friday. The U.S. Border Patrol will no longer refer migrant parents who cross into the United States illegally with children to federal courthouses to face criminal charges. The White House announced a plan on Thursday to combine the Education and Labor departments to form the Department of Education and the Workforce. In Lucia v. SEC, the Supreme Court struck a major blow at one of the centerpieces of the administrative state: the tradition of civil-service appointments of independent administrative law judges.
PODCAST
On this week's episode of Versus Trump, Jason Harrow talks about the past, present, and future of impeachment with Joshua Matz. Listen now!
TRUMP: INVESTIGATIONS & LITIGATION
Federal authorities have subpoenaed the publisher of the National Enquirer for records related to its $150,000 payment to a former Playboy model for the rights to her story alleging an affair with Donald Trump (WSJ).
IMMIGRATION
House Republican leaders postponed a vote on a “compromise” immigration proposal until Friday, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (POLITICO, NYT).
Trump's family separation separations are unconstitutional, contend Teri Kanefield and Jed Shugerman at Slate.
The U.S. Border Patrol will no longer refer migrant parents who cross into the United States illegally with children to federal courthouses to face criminal charges (WaPo).
The Department of Justice asked a federal district court to modify the Flores settlement, which prohibits the federal government from keeping children in immigration detention centers for more than 20 days, following President Trump's decision to end the practice of separating migrant children from their parents who cross the U.S. border illegally (The Hill).
The criminalization of seeking asylum is not only unethical and abhorrent, it is also illegal under refugee and human rights law binding on the United States, write Meg Satterthwaite and Rebecca Riddell for Just Security.
President Trump returned to his tough talk and called for changes in immigration laws a day after he retreated from his hard-line position of separating immigrant children from their families (NYT).
Immigration activists shuttled from terminal to terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York, after news spread that children who had been separated from their parents at the United States-Mexico border might be arriving on flights (NYT).
As reports came in of hundreds of children sent quietly to New York after being separated from their families at the southern border, consular officials from Central American countries scrambled to help (NYT).
As federal prosecutors face skyrocketing immigration caseloads along the southwestern border, the Defense Department agreed to help the Justice Department prosecute the cases (NYT).
Despite repeated claims about a “crisis of illegal immigration,” government data shows that monthly crossings along the border with Mexico are dramatically lower than they were years ago (NYT).
CIVIL RIGHTS
Under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the department has scuttled more than 1,200 civil rights investigations that were begun under the Obama administration and lasted at least six months (ProPublica).
DEMOCRACY
Challengers in a partisan-gerrymandering case from North Carolina urged the Supreme Court to move ahead despite the recent decision in Gill v. Whitford, telling the justices that – unlike the Wisconsin challengers – they do have a legal right to sue (SCOTUSblog).
JUSTICE & SAFETY
Details blaming Syria for atrocities in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, were uncovered by a United Nations commission investigating and documenting possible war crimes, but were omitted from the commission’s report (NYT).
REGULATION
In a concurrence in Pereira v. Sessions, Justice Kennedy may have signed the death warrant for Chevron deference, writes Joshua Matz for Take Care.
The White House announced a plan on Thursday to combine the Education and Labor departments to form the Department of Education and the Workforce (WSJ, CNBC).
FTC Chairman Joseph Simons announced that the agency will hold a series of public hearings to examine whether it needs to adjust its enforcement policies in order to effectively police internet platform companies (The Hill).
Internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes in states where they have no physical presence, the Supreme Court ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair (NYT)
CHECKS & BALANCES
In Lucia v. SEC, the Supreme Court struck a major blow at one of the centerpieces of the administrative state: the tradition of civil-service appointments of independent administrative law judges (SCOTUSblog).