Search Results for: 2017-05-18

“Personhood” laws seek to classify fetuses as “persons” and grant them full legal protection under the US Constitution. These laws purport to protect the rights of a pregnant person, should they be involved in any sort of incident that terminates the pregnancy. Pro-choice individuals vehemently oppose Personhood laws because they broadly restrict an individual’s choice [...]

Congress needs to act to restore the balance of power and prevent future administrations from undermining legislative intent and wreaking havoc on the lives of so many Americans that depend on a functioning immigration system. This means taking back the power of the purse when it comes to immigration benefits and creating Article I courts [...]

I, as a white woman, have bit by bit come to understand how racism is at the heart of much of our legislation and has been for all of our history. As a young person in the late 60’s I thought that changing our laws could create equality. As a Catholic Sister dedicated to social [...]

The US Supreme Court decided on Thursday that the current administration could not end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program (DACA). Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court in the Department of Homeland Security v. Regents University of California, he was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor. DACA has allowed certain [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, and the subsequent protests have brought racial inequalities to the forefront of public square discussion.  As faculty of color in the fields of criminal justice and legal studies, we cover diversity issues in all of our classes, especially with students who will be [...]

Over the past year, and increasingly in the last few months, the people of Hong Kong have taken to the streets as China has been on a spree of introducing draconian laws, targeting individual civil liberties and constantly threatening Hong Kong’s autonomy, with a new security law being the latest addition. China seeks to bypass [...]

As society grapples to stay on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a heightened responsibility on governments to effectively deal with this public health crisis, in a manner that is least-restrictive towards the civil liberties of its citizens. The use of technology as a part of disaster-response cannot be denied, but the regulatory lacunae [...]

A federal judge entered an order on Monday allowing various banks to release confidential information to the Warmbier family about several frozen North Korean accounts to aid the family with collecting on a $500 million judgment for the 2017 death of Otto Warmbier. North Korea was found liable in December 2018 for the torture, hostage-taking, [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its charges Thursday against Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, for falsifying statements to the FBI. The DOJ dropped the case after determining that Flynn’s statements were not “‘material’ to the underlying investigation.” Flynn made the statements during the FBI’s investigation of Russian [...]

A report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday says that at least 138 Salvadorans deported from the US since 2013 were subsequently killed, usually within a year of reentry. The report also identifies more than 70 instances of deportees facing sexual violence, torture or other abuse. The deaths were confirmed through official records, [...]