US ends settlement negotiations in family separation lawsuits
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government withdrew Thursday from settlement negotiations to end lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who were forcibly separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance border policy.
Justice Department officials informed lawyers for the plaintiffs in a conference call that the government would not offer a global settlement in family separation cases and will defend each one in court, said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed one of the suits.
The decision comes after eight months of negotiations and weeks after reports of a proposed settlement that would include payments of several hundred thousand dollars to each family sparked outrage among Biden administration critics in Congress and elsewhere.
Gelernt said no explanation was given. “It’s hard to understand DOJ’s decision other than it was influenced by political considerations,” he said.
The Justice Department suggested in a statement that settlements were still possible despite its withdrawal from the talks.
“While the parties have been unable to reach a global settlement agreement at this time, we remain committed to engaging with the plaintiffs and to bringing justice to the victims of this abhorrent policy,” it said.
About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents in 2018 under President Donald Trump as his administration sought to stop an increase in people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with criminal prosecutions, even if the migrants were presenting themselves to authorities to seek asylum as permitted under the law.
The parents of hundreds of children have still not been located.
Trump halted the practice in June 2018 amid widespread outrage, including from many Republicans, just six days before a judge ordered an end to the program in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
The settlement talks with the ACLU and attorneys for hundreds of other plaintiffs had proceeded quietly until The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Justice Department was considering paying about $450,000 to each person affected by the policy. The Associated Press later confirmed the figure had been under consideration.
Supreme Court abortion:
The Supreme Court has formally returned a lawsuit over Texas’ six-week abortion ban to a federal appeals court that has twice allowed the law to stay in effect, rather than to a district judge who sought to block it.
Justice Neil Gorsuch on Thursday signed the court’s order that granted the request of abortion clinics for the court to act speedily. But the clinics wanted the case sent directly to U.S. Judge Robert Pitman, who had previously though briefly blocked enforcement of the Texas abortion ban known as S.B. 8.
When Pitman ordered the law blocked in early October, the appeals court countermanded his order two days later.
Texas has said it will seek to keep the case bottled up at the appeals court for the foreseeable future.
Marc Hearron, the Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer who represented the clinics at the high court, said, “The Supreme Court left only a small sliver of our case intact, and it’s clear that
this part of the case will not block vigilante lawsuits from being filed. It’s also clear that Texas is determined to stop the plaintiffs from getting any relief in even the sliver of the case that is left.”
China sanctions: Senators gave final congressional approval Thursday to a bill barring imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove they were produced without forced labor, overcoming initial hesitation from the White House and what supporters said was opposition from corporations.
The measure is the latest
in a series intensifying U.S. penalties over China’s alleged systemic and widespread abuse of ethnic and religious minorities in the western region, especially Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim Uyghurs. The Biden administration also announced new sanctions Thursday targeting several Chinese biotech and surveillance companies, a leading drone manufacturer and government entities for their actions in Xinjiang.
The Senate vote sends the bill to President Joe Biden.
Bouncy castle deaths: Five children died and four
others were in critical condition Thursday after falling from a bouncy castle that was lifted 33 feet into the air by a gust of wind at a school on Australia’s island state of Tasmania.
The school was holding a celebration to mark the end of the school year.
The children who died included two boys and two girls in year 6, which would make them 10 or 11 years old, said Tasmania police Commissioner Darren Hine. Police later Thursday confirmed a fifth child died in the hospital.
Five other children were being treated, including four in critical condition. Hine said an investigation is underway.
Civil rights pioneer: A judge has approved a request to wipe clean the court record of a Black woman who was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a segregated Alabama bus in 1955, months before Rosa Parks gained international fame for doing the same.
A judge granted the request by Claudette Colvin, now 82, in a brief court order made public Thursday by a family representative.
Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man on Dec. 1, 1955. Her treatment led to the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott, which propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into the national limelight and often is considered the start of the modern civil rights movement.
A 15-year-old high school student at the time, Colvin refused to shift seats on a segregated Montgomery bus even before Parks.
A bus driver called police on March 2, 1955, to complain that two Black girls were sitting near two white girls in violation of segregation laws. One of the Black girls moved toward the rear when asked, a police report said, but Colvin refused and was arrested.
The 10 people who lost their lives in a massive crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston died from compression asphyxia, officials announced Thursday.
Medical examiners with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston had to wait several weeks following the Nov. 5 concert by rapper Travis Scott for additional test results before making final determinations on cause and manner of the deaths.
The 10 people who died were among 50,000 who attended the festival and were in the audience when Scott’s concert turned deadly.
Some 300 people were injured and treated at the festival site and 25 were taken to hospitals.
Musical festival deaths: