aqualawyer.bsky.social
@aqualawyer.bsky.social
Chicago lawyer, brief-writing specialist (anon for work), mom, scuba fiend, UCONN basketball superfan, all around🦈
Reposted
“She showed up as scheduled, and when she arrived, officers were asking everyone what country they were from, and if they said a certain country, they were told to step out of line and that their oath ceremonies were canceled.”

www.wgbh.org/news/local/2... @gbhnews.bsky.social
Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide
Trump administration is pausing naturalizations for immigrants from 19 countries.
www.wgbh.org
December 5, 2025 at 10:56 PM
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If you want a read about the recent anti-constituonal attempt to denaturalize American children from their claim to birthright citizenship using bad history, @evanbernick.bsky.social, @gowder.io, I wrote about it in the Cornell Law Review Online. publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp...
December 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
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it cannot be said enough, and should be shouted from the rooftops:

this is a fake legal issue that's been backstopped by on-demand scholarship from academics who are part of the same project as the conservative justices. the "authority" they will cite is no better than citing AI slop.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to take up a challenge to President Trump's January 20 birthright citizenship executive order.

The court will hear DOJ's appeal of a loss below in a class-action challenge brought in the wake of June's decision limiting universal injunctions.
December 5, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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The alleged drug boat that the Trump administration sunk off the coast of Trinidad wasn’t even headed to the U.S., CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reported Friday.
Boat Struck Multiple Times By Pentagon Wasn’t Even Headed To U.S.: CNN
www.huffpost.com
December 5, 2025 at 10:58 PM
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Yep. Murder.
I mean, this is an execution
December 5, 2025 at 1:15 AM
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#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three democratic appointees, #SCOTUS puts Texas's new House maps back into effect for (and, presumably, through) the 2026 midterms.

The three Democratic appointees, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, dissent.

I'll post the ruling shortly.
December 4, 2025 at 11:00 PM
I don’t know if anyone follows me for real but putting this out there. I’m a lawyer licensed in IL and admitted in multiple federal courts. I’m off work now (former fed) and would happily commit pro bono time to any organizations or firms doing immigration or election law right now. Please share.
December 3, 2025 at 10:27 PM
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed disastrous cuts to our city's libraries while setting aside $5M for a ShotSpotter replacement. As library associate Sara Heymann told me, “Libraries embody everything we need to fight back against fascism.” My piece on what’s at stake and how to fight back:
You Can’t Fight Fascism While Defunding Libraries
“Libraries embody everything that we need right now to fight back against fascism," says Sara Heymann.
organizingmythoughts.org
December 3, 2025 at 6:25 PM
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Probably the most important post you will read today. #HoldFast
An official government account using the word “remigration” is not normal. It’s an imported term from European far-right movements that refers to mass expulsion. Democracies do not use population-purification language. #holdfast #SteadyState
December 1, 2025 at 12:12 AM
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Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.
November 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
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President Donald Trump, who has assailed Illinois’ governor and its largest city, denied disaster aid to thousands of Chicago residents even though his administration documented extraordinary damage from two major storms this summer...

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
Trump refused to send disaster aid to Chicago after 2 devastating storms
The destruction caused by the summer storms was enough that past presidents likely would have approved requests for federal assistance, former FEMA officials said.
www.politico.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:00 AM
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Stunning development: Senators now confirm the Trump admin’s 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine wasn’t a U.S. plan at all. It was a Russian wish list. Follow along. This is crazy. 1/
November 23, 2025 at 12:26 AM
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NEW: ICE has finally released post-shutdown detention data. The latest data reveals that a full 40%(!) of people arrested in the interior and held in ICE detention have no criminal record; no criminal charges or prior convictions. That is up from just 4% when Trump took office.
November 21, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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A “joint situational information report” from the FBI and the New York police department (NYPD), dated 28 August 2025, quoted from a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, and also characterized the court watchers as “anarchist violent extremist actors.”
The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal
Exclusive: Agency accessed private conversations of New York ‘courtwatch’ group that was observing public hearings
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:11 PM
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THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos.

I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.
November 20, 2025 at 11:04 PM
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Ellis repeatedly accuses multiple CBP and ICE officials of lying (under oath) and says their "widespread misrepresentations call into question everything" they "say they are doing in their characterization of what is happening." She broadly discredits their testimony as objectively false.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis just handed down the written opinion version of her preliminary injunction order, regarding use of force by federal agents in Chicago.

It's the one already put on hold by the 7th Circuit.

It's 233 pages.

Here you go: cst.brightspotcdn.com/49/34/daecfb...
November 20, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted
November 19, 2025 at 3:52 AM
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Remember that time New York elected a Muslim mayor and MAGA shit their pants saying Sharia law was coming to NYC, and then like a week later Trump gave F-35's to Saudi Arabia, the capital of Wahabbi fundamentalist Islam, where 17 of 19 9/11 hijackers were citizens? Just to open Trump Tower Riyadh?
November 18, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted
Critical D65 School Board meeting under way

Vote expected to advance a school closing scenario.
Critical D65 School Board meeting under way
Vote expected to advance a school closing scenario.
evanstonnow.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 AM
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Organizers told me that at least 7 faith leaders were among those arrested on Friday.

In a statement posted on X, DHS referred to demonstrators as "imbeciles" who need to "get a job."

One pastor told me "this is our job," adding, "to advocate for the oppressed. religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...
At least seven faith leaders arrested at Broadview ICE facility protest
(RNS) — 'I've got bruises all over my body,' the Rev. Michael Woolf, who was thrown to the ground and arrested by police, told RNS.
religionnews.com
November 15, 2025 at 8:11 PM
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NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find:

- NONE of the arrested were criminally charged
- NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists."
- ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.
November 13, 2025 at 2:08 PM
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turns out the emails we should have been reading in 2016 were from the NYT
November 12, 2025 at 10:34 PM
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🚨 BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein called Donald Trump “the dog that hasn’t barked,” and told Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/hou...
House Democrats release new Epstein emails referencing Trump
Jeffrey Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had "spent hours at my house" with Donald Trump, according to emails released by Democrats on Wednesday.
abcnews.go.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:22 PM