Derek Reinbold  //  11/21/17  //  Daily Update

The Trump administration announced that 59,000 Haitians living in the United States under a temporary status must leave within the next year-and-a-half. The Trump administration returned North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Trump administration filed suit to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Special Counsel Robert Mueller sent a broad request to the Department of Justice for documents covering Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal decision and about the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey.

IMMIGRATION

The Trump administration announced that 59,000 Haitians living in the United States under a temporary status must leave within the next year-and-a-half (NYTimes, LATimes).

Advocates for Dreamers decided to table their request for documents detailing the Trump administration’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, choosing instead to seek a preliminary injunction before the March 5 deadline (Politico).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has proposed an automated “Extreme Vetting Initiative”—it is both discriminatory and ineffective, writes Faiza Patel at Just Security.

Border patrol checkpoints are a poor use of resources—they should be shut down, writes Alex Nowrasteh at Cato at Liberty.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Attorney General Jeff Sessions repudiated the use of administrative guidance documents, signifying that the administration may roll back many of the civil rights gains made during the Obama administration, writes Jesselyn McCurdy for the ACLU.

Lambda Legal and 40 other LGBT organizations published a letter opposing the nomination of Gregory Katsas to the D.C. Circuit (Lambda Legal).

DEMOCRACY

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is stepping up his fight with President Trump’s election fraud commission (Bangor Daily News).

JUSTICE & SAFETY

The actual death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria may be more than nine times greater than the initial count (CNN).

The Trump administration returned North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism (NYTimes, WaPo).

• In 2008, the Bush administration took North Korea off this list in an attempt to salvage a nuclear arms deal.

The United States, along with Afghan allies, have begun a series of strikes on narcotics labs in southern Afghanistan, marking the beginning of an expanded air war under the Trump administration (WaPo).

Attorney General Sessions announced nearly $100 million in grant funding for local police departments to hire additional officers (The Hill).

The US Government’s drive to cut foreign aid—particularly anticorruption aid—in favor of military spending is shortsighted, even on national security grounds, writes Nick Gersh at the Global Anticorruption Blog.

REGULATION

The Trump administration filed suit to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger (NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo). 

Nebraska approved the Keystone XL pipeline, but the state created uncertainty by picking an alternative path for the line (NYTimes, LATimes).

The FCC this week is expected to unveil a plan rolling back net-neutrality rules (WSJ).

• The agency will reportedly scrap its core net neutrality rules (Politico).

Trump officials are working to limit the administrative state, writes Josh Blackman, reporting from the Federalist Society convention, at National Review.

Environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over its decision to allow hunters to import trophies from hunting African elephants and lions in Zimbabwe (The Hill).

• President Trump put the decision on hold on Twitter over the weekend, but the environmental groups are suing to make the hold permanent.

There has been little discussion of active cyber defense, which would allow private entities to “hack back” against hostile cyber activity. A new proposal—the Active Cyber Defense Certainty Act (ACDC)—may change that conversation, but legal and policy concerns remain, writes Chris Cook for Just Security.

The most lethal mass shooting in American history took place on October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas. Since then, there have been several more shootings, but no regulatory response, writes Bill Gardner for The Incidental Economist.

Authority for nationwide injunctions must come from some source other than the Administrative Procedure Act, argues Sam Bray at The Volokh Conspiracy.

RULE OF LAW 

The Justice Department argued that federal prisoners serving longer prison terms than allowed by law are not entitled to challenge their sentence in court, and it urged the Supreme Court to deny review in just such a case, notes Adam Liptak for The New York Times.

CHECKS & BALANCES

The Federalist Society, through the Trump administration, is poised to reshape the federal judiciary (Buzzfeed).

Republicans just eliminated blue slips for circuit nominees, and the Third Circuit is where that matters most, writes Matthew Stiegler at CA3blog.

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE

Special Counsel Robert Mueller sent a broad request to the Department of Justice for documents covering Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal decision and about the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey (ABC News).

Members of the Trump administration are increasingly divided in their assessment of the special counsel’s expanding investigation (WaPo).

Russia has no constitutional right to participate in a US election and the Trump campaign has no such right to solicit or receive the benefits of that participation; simply put, this is not your typical campaign finance case, writes Bob Bauer for Just Security.

Harvard’s Digital Democracy Project released its first set of recommendations on how elections can be safeguarded against hacking attacks (Reuters, The Hill).

• The report can be found here.

Much of the Russian meddling in the 2016 election probably didn’t violate federal law, wouldn’t be covered by proposed “honest ads” legislation, and may soon be shielded by a conservative Supreme Court, writes Rick Hasen for his Election Law Blog.