Caso’s Gun-A-Rama has been open since 1967. Saturday 2/11/2023 Jersey City, NJ. (Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Friday upheld a federal law that bars people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning a firearm.

In an 8-1 decision on United States v. Rahimi, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion that “our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”

“When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment,” Roberts wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a staunch advocate of the Second Amendment, was the lone dissent.

Thomas argued that the question before the court was not if someone can have their firearms taken away under the Second Amendment, but instead whether the “Government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order — even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime. It cannot.”

The White House and gun safety advocates welcomed the long-awaited decision as a major victory.

“No one who has been abused should have to worry about their abuser getting a gun,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “As a result of today’s ruling, survivors of domestic violence and their families will still be able to count on critical protections, just as they have for the past three decades.”

2022 decision

This was the first major test of the 2022 Supreme Court decision – New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen – that struck down a New York law limiting carrying firearms in the open in a decision from the high court that greatly expanded gun rights. Thomas wrote that decision.

Because of the Bruen decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit vacated Zackey Rahimi’s conviction on the grounds that the federal law violated his Second Amendment rights.

In 2019, Rahimi assaulted his girlfriend in Arlington, Texas, and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, according to the Department of Justice. That led to a restraining order that suspended his handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.

But Rahimi did not adhere to that order and then threatened another woman with a gun, and two months later opened fire in public five times.

J. Matthew Wright, a federal public defender in North Texas who argued for his client, Rahimi, declined to comment on the decision.

Roberts says appeals court was wrong

Roberts argued the court’s decision in Bruen does “not help Rahimi,” and said the 5th Circuit’s decision was wrong in its methodology.

Roberts said instead of reviewing the circumstances in which the federal law “was most likely to be constitutional, the panel instead focused on hypothetical scenarios where the provision might raise constitutional concerns.”

He said that lower courts have misunderstood the methodology the high court used in the Bruen decision and that those “precedents were not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber.”

Roberts said that lower courts should discern “[w]hy and how the regulation burdens” on the Second Amendment right “are central to this inquiry.”

“For example, if laws at the founding regulated firearm use to address particular problems, that will be a strong indicator that contemporary laws imposing similar restrictions of similar reasons fall within a permissible category of regulations,” he said. “As Bruen explained, a challenged regulation that does not precisely match its historical precursors ‘still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.’”

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she said while she agreed with the Rahimi decision, she still believed Bruen was wrongly decided. However, she added the decision “clarifies Bruen’s historical inquiry.”

“Rather than asking whether a present-day gun regulation has a precise historical analogue, courts applying Bruen should ‘conside(r) whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,’” she said.

Sotomayor said in the Rahimi case, the government did not identify a “founding-era or Reconstruction-era law that specifically disarmed domestic abusers,” but that it didn’t need to because there is “shared principle” in restricting gun use by those who pose a threat.

“History has a role to play in Second Amendment analysis, but a rigid adherence to history, (particularly history predating the inclusion of women and people of color as full members of the polity), impoverishes constitutional interpretation and hamstrings our democracy,” she said.

Historical precedent

During oral arguments in November before the court, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, argued that the 5th Circuit misinterpreted the Bruen decision.

She said there is historical precedent in the ability of Congress to “disarm those who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens.”

Under a 1994 federal law, anyone who has been convicted in any court of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” and, or, is subject to domestic violence protective orders, is prohibited from purchasing and having possession of firearms and ammunition.

During those oral arguments, the justices – both liberal and conservative – seemed to side with Prelogar’s argument that the federal law is in line with the longstanding practice of disarming dangerous people and does not violate an individual’s Second Amendment rights.

More than half of female homicide victims are killed by current or former male intimate partners. Firearms are used in more than 50% of those homicides.

More than two dozen states have laws that prevent someone subject to an order in a domestic violence case from buying or possessing a gun and ammunition.

Some of those states include Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Protecting victims

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement the decision upheld a law that “protects victims by keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous individuals who pose a threat to their intimate partners and children.”

“As the Justice Department argued, and as the Court reaffirmed today, that commonsense prohibition is entirely consistent with the Court’s precedent and the text and history of the Second Amendment,” Garland said.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the executive director of the gun safety advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said in a statement that the court’s decision will ensure that “millions across the country will be protected over the desires of gun rights extremists.”

“This is a win for the gun safety movement and another loss for the gun lobby hellbent on putting lives in danger,” Ferrell-Zabala said.

Douglas Letter, the chief legal officer of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement that he hopes lower courts will follow the advice from Friday’s ruling.

“Guns are the number one weapon of choice for domestic abusers, and there is no reason why anyone who is a known danger should be permitted access to firearms,” Letter said.

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WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 24: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about Russia's "unprovoked and unjustified" military invasion of neighboring Ukraine in the East Room of the White House on February 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. Biden announced a new round of sanctions against Russia after President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine from the land, sea and air on Thursday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration Tuesday will announce deportation protections for long-term undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens, along with quicker approval of work permits for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

President Joe Biden will formally make the announcement during an afternoon White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program. The initiative was launched during the Obama administration and was meant to temporarily protect undocumented children brought into the United States without authorization.

The new policies were previewed by senior administration officials to reporters late Monday.

The new DACA policy will allow those recipients who have graduated from an accredited university and have an offer by a U.S. employer for a highly skilled job to quickly qualify for one of the existing temporary work visas, such as an H-1B visa.

The new policies came two weeks after Biden enacted his harshest crackdown on immigration with a partial ban on asylum proceedings at the southern border. Immigration remains a top issue for voters and for Biden’s GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

Democrats and immigration advocates have long pressed the Biden administration to instill permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 DACA recipients as they await a decision from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could deem the program unlawful. The legal dispute is likely to head to the Supreme Court.

Many immigration policy experts have called DACA outdated, because there are now thousands of undocumented people who are not eligible for the program because they were not even born yet. To qualify, an undocumented person needs to have continuously resided in the U.S. since 2007.

Murphy administration urges Biden to offer protections to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens

Biden pushed to take action

Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed their frustration and pushed for the Biden administration to use executive action to grant relief for the more than 1.1 million Americans who fear their undocumented spouses could face deportation.

The deportation protections to those married to a U.S. citizens are a one-time action expected to allow roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements.

To qualify, a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.

The Department of Homeland Security will consider those applications, which are expected to be open by the end of summer, on a case-by-case basis, a senior administration official said.

This move is also expected to affect roughly 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

For those children to qualify, they have to be 21 or younger, unmarried “and the marriage between the parents has to have taken place before the child turned 18,” a senior administration official said.

Under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would be required to leave the U.S. and reenter legally through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, which is a lengthy process that can take years.

“The challenges and uncertainty of this process result in many eligible spouses not applying for permanent residence,” a senior administration official said.

Application info coming

More information on the application and eligibility process will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks, a senior administration official said.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the legal immigration system, has a similar program that allows noncitizens who are immediate family members of U.S. military service members to obtain green cards without leaving the country.

“This announcement utilizes existing authorities to keep families together,” a senior administration official said. “But… only Congress can fix our broken immigration system.”

Any immigration reform from Congress is unlikely, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. A bipartisan border security deal fell apart earlier this year. There was no pathway to citizenship in that deal for DACA recipients or longtime immigrants.

The closest Congress came to bipartisan immigration reform was in 2013, when the “Gang of Eight,” made up of four Republican and four Democratic senators, crafted a bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.

It passed the Senate, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner never brought the bill to the floor for a vote.

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A 7.62X39mm round sits next a a 30-round magazine and an AK-47 with a bump stock installed at Good Guys Gun and Range in Orem, Utah, on Feb. 21, 2018. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a 2018 rule to ban bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire at a rapid rate similar to fully automatic guns. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule enacted following a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that defined a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock attachment as a machine gun, which is generally prohibited under federal law.

The opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, reduces the executive branch’s already-limited ability to address gun violence. Thomas, a strong defender of Second Amendment gun rights, wrote that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its statutory authority in prohibiting the sale and possession of bump stocks, which he said differed importantly from machine guns.

“Nothing changes when a semiautomatic rifle is equipped with a bump stock,” Thomas wrote. “Between every shot, the shooter must release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before reengaging the trigger for another shot.”

The case, Garland v. Cargill, was a 6-3 decision that broke along the court’s established ideological lines.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior member of the court’s liberal wing, wrote the dissent, and argued that the decision puts “bump stocks back in civilian hands.”

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote. “A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent.”

Gun safety setback

The White House slammed the decision.

“Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”

Biden called on Congress to ban bump stocks and assault weapons, but any gun-related legislation is likely to be stalled with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding only a slim majority in the Senate.

“Bump stocks have played a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country, but sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Trump-era rule

This case stems from a regulation set during the Trump administration, following the mass shooting in Las Vegas. A gunman used rifles outfitted with bump stocks to fire into a crowd at a music festival, killing 58 people that night and two more who died of their injuries later, and injuring more than 500.

The next year, the ATF issued the rule that concluded bump stocks are illegal machine guns. Anyone who owned or possessed a bump stock was required to either destroy the material or turn it in to the agency to avoid criminal penalties.

Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner in Austin, Texas, surrendered two bump stocks to ATF and then challenged the rule in federal court.

A U.S. district court dismissed his case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with Cargill that a 1986 law’s definition of a machine gun does not apply to bump stocks because the rifles equipped with the attachments don’t shoot multiple bullets “automatically,” or “by a single function of the trigger.”

That law defined a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”

The Biden administration appealed the 5th Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court.

High court arguments

In oral arguments, the Biden administration defended the Trump-era rule and said that bump stocks allow semiautomatic rifles to fire automatically with a single pull of the trigger.

Attorneys for Cargill argued that bump stocks are used by repeatedly pulling the trigger, rather than firing automatically with a single pull.

In her dissent, Sotomayor said the decision will limit the federal government’s “efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

Thomas also wrote a major gun decision in 2022 that invalidated a New York law against carrying a firearm in public without showing a special need for protection. The court decided the case on 14th Amendment grounds, but it also expanded Second Amendment rights.

Because of that 2022 decision, another gun related case is before the court this session that tests a federal law that prevents the possession of firearms by a person who is subject to a domestic violence protective order. A decision is expected this month.

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 13: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump (C-R) is applauded by Senate Republicans before giving remarks to the press at the National Republican Senatorial Committee building on June 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. Trump is visiting Capitol Hill to meet with House and Senate Republicans. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In his first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving office in January 2021, former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, mapped campaign strategy with GOP lawmakers and projected party unity ahead of the November elections.

Trump said the meetings brought “great unity.”

Surrounded by Republican senators who were smiling and applauding him after a meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters near the Capitol, Trump said “we have one thing in mind and that’s making our country great.”

The positive reception from GOP leaders showed Trump’s standing in the party improved since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that saw a mob of Trump supporters attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block Congress from certifying the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

The U.S. House impeached Trump – for the second time – for his role in the attack, though the Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him.

Trump’s visit Thursday came two weeks after he was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York for falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election. Republicans have denounced the verdict as a weaponization of the justice system.

Trump met with House and Senate Republicans separately. Lawmakers exiting their respective meetings said they were unified behind the former president and they discussed a legislative strategy for a potential second term, such as reinstating Trump-era immigration policies.

“He understands he needs a majority in both bodies to have a successful presidency and he is determined to do that,” Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said.

Trump has made immigration a core campaign issue – as he did in 2016 – and has promised to not only reinstate his policies at the southern border, but to carry out mass deportations. 

Democrats have remained on the offense on immigration policy, with the White House enacting an executive order that limits asylum claims at the southern border and the Senate failing on a second attempt to pass a border security bill. Vulnerable U.S. Senate Democrats in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania are aiming for reelection.

Trump urges ‘careful’ abortion talk

The meetings occurred on the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on another hot-button issue for the GOP. In a much-anticipated decision, the court unanimously upheld access to mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion, under current prescribing guidelines.

House GOP lawmakers leaving the early meeting said that Trump did not comment on the court’s ruling.

But New York Rep. Marc Molinaro said that the former president advised Republicans that they “have to be very careful about” how they talk about abortion and that “is to show respect for women and the choices that they have to make.”

Just days ago, Trump promised to work “side by side” with a religious organization that wants abortion “eradicated.” Trump has yet to release his policy stances on contraception and access to medication abortion, a two-drug regimen approved for up to 10 weeks gestation.

Access to reproductive health care, including contraception and IVF, has become a central campaign theme for Democrats.

The Senate tried to pass legislation last week that would have provided protections for access to contraception, but most Republicans voted against it. The Senate also took a procedural vote Thursday on legislation from Democrats that would bolster protections for IVF, but it failed in the face of Republican opposition.

Birthday, baseball and an ‘aggressive agenda’

GOP House members leaving their meeting reported singing “Happy Birthday” to Trump, whose 78th birthday is Friday.

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said the conference presented Trump with a baseball and bat from the previous night’s Congressional Baseball Game, a charity event which Republicans won 31-11.

Burchett said they wanted to give him the memorabilia because “he’s the leader of our party, and the Republicans destroyed the Democrats, as we should do on Election Day.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters after the meeting that Trump “brought an extraordinary amount of energy and excitement and enthusiasm this morning.”

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, of New York, said Trump was “warmly welcomed” and that GOP lawmakers had a “very successful” meeting with him.

“We are 100% unified behind his candidacy,” said Stefanik, a contender on Trump’s short list for vice presidential picks.

Johnson told reporters that Republicans have “an extraordinary stable of candidates” and that the party is “headed for a great November.”

Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida made similar remarks, and said that she believes “momentum is on our side.”

“We’re very, very motivated, our base is motivated and everyday Americans are motivated,” Cammack said.

She added that the former president is working to grow the Republican party.

“It’s pretty clear that November for us is gonna be incredible,” she said.

Stakes in November

Johnson said that he’s confident Trump will win the White House and that Republicans will flip the Senate and grow their majority in the House.

Control of each chamber of Congress is expected to be closely fought in the November elections, and it’s possible that the House and Senate will continue to be split between the parties, but political observers see the prospect of a big switch.

If current trends continue through the year, it’s possible that the Senate could swing from Democratic to Republican control, and the House could flip from the GOP to Democrats.

House Democrats only need a gain of five seats to regain power and Senate Republicans only need two, or one if Trump wins the presidential race. Republicans have an easy opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in West Virginia after Joe Manchin III, a centrist Democrat, decided not seek reelection.

“We will be working on a very aggressive agenda to fix all the great problems facing this country right now,” Johnson said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that Trump is focused on increasing the GOP majority in the House. Because of the razor-thin majority that Republicans hold in the chamber, Johnson has often had to rely on Democrats to pass government funding bills along with foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel.

Insult to convention city

Republicans are gearing up for the party’s national convention in Milwaukee in mid-July, where they will officially nominate Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee and a yet-to-be-named vice presidential pick as well.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York four days before the convention begins.

The former president did not mention a running mate during his meeting with GOP senators, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said.

Trump told lawmakers Thursday that Milwaukee is a “horrible” city, according to Punchbowl News. 

Wisconsin Republicans had varying interpretations of the remark, with Rep. Derrick Van Orden saying Trump was talking about crime in the city and Rep. Bryan Steil denying that Trump even made the comment.

Trump is scheduled to visit southeastern Wisconsin next week, for a campaign rally in Racine on Tuesday.

Key to Senate majority

Following the meeting Trump had with senators, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville offered a handful of words to characterize the meeting: “Unification. Leadership.”

But not all Senate Republicans were in attendance. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins did not attend due to scheduling conflicts, according to the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said that despite those absences, Republicans are still unified in their support of Trump.

Even those senators who have been at odds with the former president, such as Utah’s Mitt Romney and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, attended, which South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham felt was beneficial.

“We realize that his success is our success,” Graham said of Trump. “The road to the Senate majority is also the road to the White House.”

Dismissing guilty verdict

Johnson of Louisiana said Trump’s guilty verdict in New York has “backfired fantastically,” as the party boasted of a fundraising bump after “the terrible, bogus trial in Manhattan.”

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall made a similar argument that the verdict benefited Trump.

“It’s helping him,” he said, noting that after the May 30 verdict, the Trump campaign raised $141 million in May.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said “there was an absolute meeting of minds” that the verdict was a “sham.”

“We are so sorry that he has to endure that,” Lummis told States Newsroom on her walk from the meeting back to the Capitol.

Trump is also charged in three other criminal cases, including federal charges that allege he knowingly spread false information after the 2020 presidential election, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to join the scheme to overturn the results and whipping his base into a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Supreme Court is set to decide in the coming weeks whether Trump enjoys presidential immunity, as he claims, from those charges.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, who was the ranking member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, criticized Republican lawmakers for meeting with Trump.

She reposted a New York Times photograph of McConnell shaking Trump’s hand Thursday on X and wrote “Mitch McConnell knows Trump provoked the violent attack on our Capitol and then ‘watched television happily’ as his mob brutally beat police officers and hunted the Vice President.”

“Trump and his collaborators will be defeated, and history will remember the shame of people like @LeaderMcConnell who enabled them,” Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who lost her reelection bid in a 2022 Republican primary, wrote.

Dems blast return

The Biden campaign has also latched onto Trump’s return to Capitol Hill, releasing statements from various Democrats who led investigations into the insurrection and criticized the former president’s return.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign that “the instigator of an insurrection is returning to the scene of the crime.”

“With his pledges to be a dictator on day one and seek revenge against his political opponents, Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy,” she said.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, former chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, criticized Republicans for allowing Trump “to waltz in here when it’s known he has no regard for democracy.”

“He still presents the same dire threat to our democracy that he did three years ago — and he’d be wise to head back to Mar-a-Lago and await his sentencing,” Thompson, of Mississippi, said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who served as an impeachment manager for Trump’s role in the insurrection, said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign that “Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave and a clear and present danger to the U.S. Constitution and the American people.”

Lia Chien contributed to this report. 

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WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 24: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about Russia's "unprovoked and unjustified" military invasion of neighboring Ukraine in the East Room of the White House on February 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. Biden announced a new round of sanctions against Russia after President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine from the land, sea and air on Thursday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday touted his administration’s efforts to reduce gun violence as the second anniversary of bipartisan gun safety legislation he signed into law approaches.

“Never give up on hope,” Biden said during an annual conference hosted by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The speech came hours after the president’s son Hunter Biden was found guilty in a federal court in Delaware of lying on paperwork related to purchasing a gun and unlawfully possessing that gun, according to media reports.

The federal jury found Hunter Biden, who has struggled with drug addiction, guilty on three related felony charges: lying to a licensed gun dealer, falsely stating on an application for a gun that he was not using drugs and for unlawfully having the gun for 11 days.

He could face up to 25 years in prison, though as a first-time offender his sentence is expected to be much less severe.

The president has avoided publicly commenting on his son’s case and he did not mention the verdict in his speech.

Gaza protest

Shortly after Biden began his speech, he was interrupted by a protester who accused the president of being “complicit” in the high death toll of the Israel-Hamas war that has killed 35,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip run by the Hamas-controlled government. An agreement over a U.S. backed cease-fire deal remains elusive.

The crowd immediately drowned out the protester. A group of protesters was removed, according to a White House pool report.

Biden tried to calm the crowd.

“That’s alright,” he said. “Folks, it’s ok, look they care, innocent children have been lost, they make a point.”

Law nears second anniversary

Biden went back to his speech, and thanked the gun safety advocates and survivors “who have turned their pain” into advocacy.

“You’ve helped power a movement,” Biden said.

The gun safety law Biden signed in 2022 was the most comprehensive federal gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. It stemmed from two deadly mass shootings less than two weeks apart in 2022.

One was at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered, making it the second-deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012.

The other was in Buffalo, New York, where a white supremacist targeted a Black neighborhood and killed 10 Black people in a grocery store.

The 2022 law provided $750 million for states to enact “red flag laws,” which allow the courts to temporarily remove a firearm from an individual who is a threat to themselves or others as well as $11 billion in mental health services for schools and families. The law cracked down on straw purchases, illegal transactions in which a buyer acquires a gun for someone else.

The bill also requires those who are under 21 and want to purchase a firearm to undergo a background check that takes into account a review of juvenile and mental health records. It also led to the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The Justice Department also announced Tuesday it has charged more than 500 people under provisions of the gun safety law to “target the unlawful trafficking and straw-purchasing of firearms.”

The statutes “directly prohibit straw purchasing and firearms trafficking and significantly enhance the penalties for those crimes, providing for up to 15 years in prison,” according to the Justice Department.

“Criminals rely on illegal gun traffickers and straw purchasers to obtain the weapons they use to harm our communities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

More work to do

Biden acknowledged that more needs to be done on gun safety legislation and he called on Congress to ban assault weapons and require universal background checks and safe storage of firearms. In a divided Congress, any gun-related legislation is unlikely to pass.

The last time Congress passed major gun legislation was 1994, when then-President Bill Clinton signed a ban on assault weapons that spanned 10 years. When it expired, Congress did not renew the ban.

Biden also took a jab at his rival, former President Donald J. Trump, and said that he won’t tell people to “get over” a mass shooting.

After a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said during a campaign speech in Sioux City, Iowa, that while the school shooting that left two dead – an 11-year-old student and the principal – was a “terrible thing that happened,” his advice was to “get over it. We have to move forward.”

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EAGLE PASS, TEXAS - MARCH 17: In an aerial view, a Texas National Guard soldier walks past a barrier of shipping containers and razor wire at he U.S.-Mexico border on March 17, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. Texas National Guard troops have fortified the U.S.-Mexico border with vast a amount of razor wire as part of Governor Greg Abbott's "Operation Lone Star" to deter migrants from crossing into Texas. The U.S. southwestern border stretches nearly 2,000 miles, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and is marked by fences, deserts, mountains and the Rio Grande, which runs the entire length of Texas. The politics surrounding border and immigration issues have become dominant themes in the U.S. presidential election campaign. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order that will allow him to partially suspend asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border when daily unauthorized crossings reach a threshold of 2,500 migrants.

“I’ve come here today to do what Republicans in Congress refuse to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said. “This action will help us gain control of our border.”

The 2,500-crossing threshold would likely be triggered immediately, a senior administration official said on a Tuesday call with reporters previewing the executive order. The order would terminate once unauthorized crossings drop. It only applies to the southern border, including the southwest land border and southern coastal borders.

Biden was joined by lawmakers, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and local leaders from Texas cities.

Biden added that in the coming weeks he’ll talk more about “how we can make our immigration system more fair and just.”

Lawmakers from both parties panned the order Tuesday, while immigrant advocacy groups promised legal challenges.

Border changes

The White House has been dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years. In addition, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made it a top issue for voters. Biden’s move marks his most drastic crackdown on immigration during his administration.

The order makes three changes to current asylum law under Title 8 of the Immigration and Nationality Act  when that threshold of 2,500 migrants is reached, a senior administration official said. The first is that a noncitizen who crosses the border without authorization will be ineligible for asylum.

The second is any noncitizen who crosses the border while the order is in effect and is processed for removal will only be referred to a credible fear interview with an asylum officer “if they manifest or express a fear of return to their country or country of removal, a fear of persecution or torture, or an intention to apply for asylum,” a senior administration official said.

And the third is raising the standard for credible fear interviews to a “reasonable probability of persecution or torture standard,” which is “a new, substantially higher standard than is currently being applied at the border,” a senior administration official said.

“Taken together, these measures will significantly increase the speed and the scope of consequences for those who cross unlawfully or without authorization and allow the departments to more quickly remove individuals who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said.

Trump comparisons

The order, versions of which were reported ahead of the White House announcement, drew criticism from both parties.

Republican leaders said the order didn’t go far enough. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana called it a “weak executive order.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the order “too little, too late.”

Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, slammed it as a partial ban on asylum, and advocacy groups blasted the order for betraying Biden’s campaign rhetoric.

Biden tried to frame the order as different from the immigration policies of the Trump administration by stating he would not separate children from their parents, bar people from the U.S. because of their religion or invoke white supremacist language that refers to immigrants as “poisoning the blood of a country” – all actions taken by Trump.

“I believe that immigration has always been a lifeblood of America, we’re constantly renewed by an infusion of people and new talent,” he said. “So I will never demonize immigrants.”

A senior administration official also argued that the executive order is different from the Trump administration’s immigration policies because the order will “only apply during times of high encounters.”

Biden, who campaigned in 2020 on protecting asylum law, is relying on the same presidential authority — Section 212(f) of the Immigration Nationality Act — that the Trump administration used to justify several immigration-related restrictions, such as the travel ban from predominantly Muslim countries.

The Biden order would also allow border officials to return certain individuals who cross the border without authorization back to Mexico – nationals from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela.

There will be exemptions for lawful permanent residents, unaccompanied minors, people with an “acute medical emergency” or an extreme threat to life or safety, and for victims of human trafficking, a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said this temporary order would go away when there are seven consecutive days when daily encounters are less than 1,500 migrants between ports of entry. Once that is established, the order expires in 14 calendar days.

Blocked bill

The Biden administration began to consider the executive order after an immigration deal the White House and Senate brokered earlier this year fell apart after Trump came out against it and Republicans quickly fell in line to oppose it.

Among other things, that deal would have given Biden the authority to shut down any asylum requests once encounters reached 5,000 people in a week or 8,500 in a day.

A senior administration official said the 2,500 threshold was chosen to be similar to the deal stuck in the Senate.

“To Joe Biden, the safety of American families should always come first,” senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo.

“That’s why today, the President is announcing new historic executive actions to bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Because of President Biden’s leadership, law enforcement will gain new capabilities that congressional Republicans cannot block.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, tried in late May to bring up the bipartisan border bill in the Senate but it failed for a second time during a procedural vote.

The lead Democratic negotiator on that bipartisan deal, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, expressed skepticism Tuesday that the Biden administration could move forward with its executive order.

“I am sympathetic to the position the administration is in, but I am skeptical the executive branch has the legal authority to shut down asylum processing between ports of entry on its own,” Murphy said. “Meaningful asylum reform requires a bipartisan solution in Congress.”

‘Immediate litigation’

Section 212(f) of the Immigration Nationality Act allows the president “to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens,” if the president “finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Since the 1980s, administrations, including Biden’s, have evoked this code in certain circumstances, such as in 2022 for any individuals connected with Russia amid its war with Ukraine.

In general, the 212(f) code has been narrowly applied, said Amy Grenier, policy and practice counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She added that she expects Tuesday’s executive order to be legally challenged.

“There will be pretty much immediate litigation around whether or not that conflicts with the part of the statute that guarantees the ability to apply for asylum,” Grenier said.

A senior administration official said the White House expects those legal challenges.

“We are prepared for any litigation on this rule,” a senior administration official said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of many legal cases against the Trump administration’s immigration policies that restricted asylum, has already stated it plans to sue the Biden administration over its executive order.

“We intend to challenge this order in court. It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now,” Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

The executive order is a stark reversal of the president’s campaign promise to “restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum-seekers,” as Biden said in his 2020 acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic National Convention.

“This new executive order that we’re expecting, (is) unfortunately part of the trend of the Biden administration adopting many of the policies that were enacted under the Trump administration that are rooted in xenophobia, and a disregard for our international obligations to provide asylum,” Kate Mahoney, a senior staff attorney at Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said.

Mahoney said applying a numbers-based cap on asylum will only harm the most vulnerable of asylum seekers and will do little to deter people from coming to the southern border.

“This kind of blunt instrument will just turn away everyone,” she said. “It’s not doing anything to better identify people who have strong claims who will truly suffer harm in their home country.”

A growing share of migrants at the southern border are families, according to Pew Research Center, where as of December families make up 41% and unaccompanied children make up 5%. The rest, 54%, are single adults.

Progressives disappointed

Democrats expressed their disappointment in the new executive order.

Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is the top Democrat on a House Judiciary Committee panel on immigration policy, said in a statement that Tuesday’s announcement was “extremely disappointing.”

“This attempt to shut down the border to asylum seekers uses the same section of U.S. immigration laws that convicted felon Donald Trump used to implement the Muslim Ban and in attempts to cut off all access to asylum,” she said. “While there are some differences from Trump’s actions, the reality is that this utilizes the same failed enforcement-only approach, penalizes asylum seekers, and furthers a false narrative that these actions will ‘fix’ the border.”

Biden addressed those criticisms and said “be patient.”

“Doing nothing is not an option,” Biden said.

However, some Democrats in border states, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, welcomed the executive order. Kelly said in a statement that more needs to be done in Congress to address immigration.

“In Arizona, where Border Patrol agents and nonprofits are often overwhelmed by daily migrant crossings, this new effort will support their crucial work and help relieve border communities from the burden of our broken immigration system,” he said.

Several Senate Republicans held a Tuesday press conference where Texas Sen. John Cornyn accused the president of “not being serious” about the southern border for only issuing the order three years into his first term.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham said that the only way to curb migration at the southern border is to remove hundreds of thousands of noncitizens from the U.S. – something that Trump has promised to do should he win a second term.

“The only policy changes that will work is to have mass deportations,” Graham said.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 18: Asylum seekers board a bus en route to a shelter at Port Authority Bus Terminal on May 18, 2023, in New York City. Mayor Eric Adams addressed the daily arrival of hundreds of migrants and stated that his administration is struggling to find emergency shelter sites and is pleading for help from federal and state officials. Adams has been exploring various options for shelters, including municipal buildings, vacant offices, and even Rikers Island, the notorious city jail, as well as 20 public school gyms to be used as emergency sites. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will start a new system Friday to hasten asylum claims for single adults, administration officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice will launch a new expedited docket for migrants who arrive alone at ports of entry and turn themselves in to border authorities, senior administration officials said on a call with reporters previewing the changes.

Those single adult migrants will have their asylum cases processed first, rather than have their case go to the back of the line, which can take years.

The new recent arrivals docket will “more swiftly impose consequences, including removal, on those without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said. Administration officials briefed reporters on the changes on the condition they not be named.

“Today, we are instituting with the Department of Justice a process to accelerate asylum proceedings so that individuals who do not qualify for relief can be removed more quickly and those who do qualify can achieve protection sooner,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The recent arrivals docket will allow asylum cases to be decided in 180 days, or six months, rather than years, a senior administration official said.

As of April, there is about a 3.6 million-case backlog in U.S. immigration court that will take years to process, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which is a research center at Syracuse University that collects data on immigration. There are roughly 600 immigration judges in the country.

Average asylum processing time nearly 3 years

Currently, when a migrant arrives to claim asylum, they are processed and, if they are not detained, they are allowed to live in the country while they await their court date. The average processing time for asylum cases for fiscal year 2023, was 1,016 days or about 2.8 years, according to TRAC.

“The recent arrivals docket is designed to decrease the amount of time it takes for certain noncitizen single adults to have their cases efficiently adjudicated by (the Executive Office for Immigration Review),” a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said single adult migrants placed in the recent arrivals docket will have their cases processed before immigration judges in five cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

There will be 10 immigration judges dedicated to the docket, a senior administration official said.

The new arrivals docket will go into effect Friday, a senior administration official said.

The DOJ and DHS announced a similar process in 2021 where a dedicated docket applied to migrant families that arrived between ports of entry at the Southwest border.

The changes build upon the Biden administration’s announcement last week of a proposed rule that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

As the White House deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, the Biden administration has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from GOP lawmakers and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

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NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - OCTOBER 22: President Donald Trump answers a question as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden listens during the second and final presidential debate at Belmont University on October 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. This is the last debate between the two candidates before the election on November 3. (Photo by Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — CNN announced on Wednesday morning that it will host a debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the network’s Atlanta studios on June 27.

CNN said there would be no audience present for the debate and moderators will be announced later.

A second debate will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10 in which both candidates have agreed to partake, according to ABC News. 

Biden earlier Wednesday had called for two debates to be held before early voting for the November election begins — and Trump responded that he would do it.

On X, formerly Twitter, Biden wrote that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27.

“Over to you, Donald,” Biden wrote. “As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.”

Trump has also accepted to participate in the June debate, according to CNN.

Biden started Wednesday’s exchanges over debates when he wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates saying he would not agree to a three-debate schedule laid out earlier by the nonpartisan organization, which has been organizing presidential debates since the 1980s. The first would have been Sept. 16.

“President Joe Biden believes the interests of the American people are best served by presidential debates that offer timely and relevant information to help inform voters before they make their choices — and that allow a head-to-head comparison of the two candidates with a chance of winning the election,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chair for the Biden campaign, wrote in a letter to the commission.

Trump then accepted Biden’s proposed debates, one in June and another in September, on his social media site, Truth Social. “I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote.

“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together!,” he also wrote.

Trump added that he wants to debate with Biden on immigration policy, electric vehicles, inflation, taxes and foreign policy. He also called for more than two debates.

In a response to the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign is also proposing additional debates in June, July, August and September.

“Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate,” the Trump campaign wrote.

Breaking with precedent

By notifying the Commission on Presidential Debates that the president would not partake in its debates, the Biden campaign broke precedent and instead said that news organizations should host the debates.

The Biden campaign proposed that the hosting broadcast news organizations be any that held a Republican primary debate in 2016 that Trump participated in and any news organization that hosted a Democratic primary debate in which Biden participated in 2020.

That is so that “neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable,” according to the letter.

The campaign proposed that the first debate be held in late June, “after Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial is likely to be over and after President Biden returns from meeting with world leaders at the G7 Summit.”

The second debate should be at the start of early September, the campaign argued, so that it is “early enough to influence early voting, but not so late as to require the candidates to leave the campaign trail in the critical late September and October period.”

The Biden campaign is also proposing that a vice presidential debate be held in late July, after the GOP nominee and running mate are selected at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One unknown is whether an independent candidate such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might also qualify for debates.

CNN said in a press release that to qualify for participation in its debate, ”a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline; agree to accept the rules and format of the debate; and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.”

The statement added that acceptable polls will include those sponsored by: CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, the New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

“The polling window to determine eligibility for the debate opened March 13, 2024, and closes seven days before the date of the debate,” the statement said.

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WASHINGTON (March 28, 2024) Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, participates in a fireside chat with Mike L. Sena during the National Fusion Center Association 11th Annual Training Event at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s proposing changes to the asylum system that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

Those changes will occur during the initial screening stages, a senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said on background during a call with reporters.

The proposed rule would allow asylum officers to issue a denial within days if there is evidence that a migrant is ineligible to claim asylum due to ties to terrorism, a threat to national security or a criminal background.

“This really only applies to individuals who have a serious criminal history or who are linked to terrorist activity and that is inherently a small fraction of the individuals that we encounter or interview on a given day,” the senior DHS official said. “We don’t think that the rule will apply to large numbers of people but it will apply to the people that we are most concerned about.”

Currently, when a migrant claims asylum, they undergo a “credible fear” screening even if they have criminal charges levied against them, and depending on the severity of the charges, they can continue to seek asylum or be disqualified.

“The proposed rule we have published today is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” DHS Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

DHS is also issuing revised guidance to asylum officers to consider whether an asylum seeker can relocate to another part of their country where they fear persecution, known as internal relocation. This was implemented under the Trump administration by Ken Cuccinelli and the Biden administration rolled that policy back.

The new guidance “will ensure early identification and removal of individuals who would ultimately be found ineligible for protection because of their ability to remain safe by relocating elsewhere in the country from which they fled,” according to a DHS press release.

The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, and has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from Republicans and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Congressional Republicans have passed legislation to reinstate hard-line Trump-era immigration policies, walked back a bipartisan border security deal and recently impeached Mayorkas.

The public comment period on the notice for the proposed rule will be from May 13 to June 12. The senior DHS official said the agency anticipates the proposed rule to be finalized this year and quickly implemented.

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WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 24: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about Russia's "unprovoked and unjustified" military invasion of neighboring Ukraine in the East Room of the White House on February 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. Biden announced a new round of sanctions against Russia after President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine from the land, sea and air on Thursday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Tuesday of rising antisemitism in the U.S. and said too many are forgetting the attack on Israel in October.

During a Holocaust memorial speech at the U.S. Capitol, Biden stressed the importance of honoring the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, and the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

“Now here we are, not 75 years later but just seven… months later and people are already forgetting, they’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror,” he told attendees at the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Day of Remembrance Celebration.

“I have not forgotten, nor have you, and we will not forget,” he continued.

Biden criticized student protests at college campuses across the country over Israel’s war effort. Protestors have called for their institutions to divest from businesses that are tied to Israel and have called for a ceasefire.

“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” Biden said. “There is no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”

Biden last week commended students’ peaceful protests, while criticizing those that turned violent.

As the war reaches its seven-month mark, more than 34,000 Palestinians – 13,000 of them children – have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The war began after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and took 199 people hostage on Oct. 7.

Combating antisemitism

Biden announced several new administration initiatives to combat antisemitism Tuesday.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will issue new guidance to all school districts and colleges to provide examples of antisemitic discrimination and how those instances can violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The agency said it has opened more than 100 investigations in the past “seven months into complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including Antisemitism.”

The Department of Homeland Security will also build an online campus safety resource guide and develop best practices for “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention to reduce these assaults and attacks,” according to a fact sheet provided by the White House.

The Department of State also has an agency, the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, which will convene technology firms to identify best practices for addressing antisemitism content online.

U.S. House action

Biden was joined Tuesday by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

The House last week passed legislation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education’s enforcement of the Civil Rights Act. All schools that receive federal funding are required to comply with that law.

Some Democrats have raised concerns that the language is too broad and could lead to restrictions on freedom of speech.

The lead drafter of the definition, Kenneth Stern, then an antisemitism expert with the American Jewish Committee, has repeatedly opposed the definition, raising concerns when the Trump administration tried to issue an executive order similar to the recent House bill.

“It was never intended to be a campus hate speech code, but that’s what Donald Trump’s executive order accomplished this week,” Stern wrote in 2019. “This order is an attack on academic freedom and free speech, and will harm not only pro-Palestinian advocates, but also Jewish students and faculty, and the academy itself.”

Johnson is also leading a House-wide effort to address the college campus protests, such as grilling university presidents and threatening to pull federal funding from those institutions.

Members of the House Education and Workforce Committee grilled Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Tuesday about antisemitism on college campuses. Several similar hearings are scheduled in the coming weeks.

“We are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile places for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said.

Johnson said there has been a rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, which was the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

“The threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics…than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”

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