The fate of President Donald Trump’s signature agenda item, a wall along the southern US border, may be in the hands of a judge who was at the center of a controversy during Trump’s 2016 campaign.
US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel will preside over a case involving three lawsuits that challenge the Trump administration’s construction of the wall.
Two years ago, while campaigning, Trump said Curiel could not act as an impartial judge when ruling on two class action suits regarding Trump University, the president’s for-profit college, because Curiel was of Mexican heritage.
Remember the U.S. district judge Trump dismissed on national television as “Mexican” and “a hater”?
He’s presiding over Trump’s border wall case now. https://t.co/qpjUJ49Aqh
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) February 6, 2018
Curiel was born in the US to parents who immigrated from Mexico, and then became naturalized citizens.
The judge will decide whether the Trump administration can use waivers, issued by Congress in 1996 and 2005, that have allowed the government to bypass certain laws, including environmental regulations, in the interest of border security projects. The Department of Homeland Security has already waived 37 environmental laws just for the construction of wall prototypes.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who is party to one of the three lawsuits, argues that the waivers are out of date and never took into account a potential border wall. Other plaintiffs, including the state of California and several conservation groups, argue that the construction of a wall would harm wildlife in the area.
“Nobody is above the law. Environmental laws were enacted to protect imperiled wildlife, delicate landscapes, and the American public,” Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups, said when the case was mounted last year.
Curiel has never publicly acknowledged the president’s remarks about his ethnicity, and Gregory Vega, a former colleague, told McClatchy that the incident “will not impact him at all. He will follow the rule of law.”
But on social media, Trump critics relished the news that Curiel will play a role in deciding whether the construction of a wall meant to keep people like his family out of the country, will move forward.
Hot Off the Karma Wire…https://t.co/FIB3pjFXZS
— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) February 6, 2018
Anyone else ready to see how this all plays out? RT @HuffPostPol: “Judge Dissed by Trump as ‘Mexican’ Presiding Over Border Wall Case” https://t.co/R5mFnV9KAs pic.twitter.com/w8okfFYnWz
— #DreamActNow (@votolatino) February 6, 2018
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy