AP News in Brief 07-27-19

Supreme Court: Trump can use Pentagon funds for border wall

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.

The court’s five conservative justices gave the administration the greenlight to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit over the money proceeded. The court’s four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start.

The justices’ decision to lift the freeze on the money allows President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”

The Supreme Court’s action reverses the decision of a trial court, which initially froze the funds in May, and an appeals court, which kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing.

As Trump expands deportation powers, immigrants prepare

CHICAGO — A sweeping expansion of deportation powers unveiled this week by the Trump administration has sent chills through immigrant communities and prompted some lawyers to advise migrants to gather up as much documentation as possible — pay stubs, apartment leases or even gym key tags — to prove they’ve been in the U.S.

But the uncertainty about how the policy might play out has created confusion and made it harder to give clear guidance to immigrants. Attorneys and immigrant rights groups gave conflicting advice about whether to carry these documents.

The new rules will allow immigration officers nationwide to deport anyone who has been here illegally for less than two years. Currently, authorities can only exercise such powers within 100 miles of the border and only target people who have been here less than two weeks.

Critics say the new policy will embolden Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers to indiscriminately round up immigrants, depriving them of a chance to make their cases before a judge or consult with a lawyer. Some have called it a “show me your papers” trope on a national scale, and roughly 300,000 immigrants living in the country illegally could be affected by the expansion, according to one estimate by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

Attorneys immediately began advising immigrants to start compiling documents that prove they had been in the country for at least two years — anything showing a consistent presence in the United States. But they don’t have to necessarily carry it with them.

US, Guatemala sign agreement to restrict asylum cases

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration signed an agreement with Guatemala Friday that will restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.

The so-called “safe third country” agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the U.S. border. It could potentially ease the crush of migrants overwhelming the U.S. immigration system, although many questions remain about how the agreement will be executed.

President Donald Trump heralded the concession as a win as he struggles to live up to his campaign promises on immigration.

“This is a very big day,” he said. “We have long been working with Guatemala and now we can do it the right way.”

He claimed, “This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and smugglers out of business.”

From wire sources

Smugglers offer cash to troops, others to drive migrants

SAN DIEGO — On the surface, it seemed like a simple task: Drive to a spot a few miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, pick up people and then drop them off at a McDonald’s or other spot past the city of San Diego, and make anywhere from $500 to $1,000. No need to cross into Mexico.

Two Marines whose arrests earlier this month for migrant smuggling led to the stunning arrests of fellow Marines at Camp Pendleton described in federal court documents such an offer being made to them. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service on Friday said a total of 19 service members have been arrested at the base, including 18 Marines and one sailor, a Navy corpsman, who all serve in the same unit.

The military personnel are accused of various crimes from migrant smuggling to drug-related offenses, but officials have not said exactly how they were involved.

U.S. Border Patrol officials say smuggling rings have been luring U.S. troops, police officers, Border Patrol agents and others to work for them as drivers — a crucial component of moving migrants further into the United States once smugglers get them over the border from Mexico.

Border Patrol agents over the years have routinely caught migrants walking onto Camp Pendleton or floating in skiffs off the coast nearby. The camp, dissected by Interstate 5 leading to Los Angeles, sits along a well-traversed route used by smugglers.

House panel asks court for Mueller grand jury material

WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler filed a petition in federal court Friday to obtain secret grand jury material underlying former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, arguing the panel needs the information as it weighs whether to pursue impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The panel is also expected to file a lawsuit next week to try to enforce a subpoena against former White House counsel Donald McGahn, a key Mueller witness, if he doesn’t comply before then. That suit is expected to challenge the White House’s claim that former White House employees have “absolute immunity” from testifying before Congress.

The committee’s court battles are beginning as the House leaves for a six-week recess and Democrats are debating whether to impeach the Republican president. Around 100 House Democrats have said they favor starting the impeachment process, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to build the strongest case possible before making that decision, including by going to court to force witnesses to comply.

The Judiciary committee’s filing says the panel needs the information in order to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment, partly an attempt to give the request more weight in the eyes of the court.

“To meaningfully consider whether to exercise this authority — as well as to exercise its other pressing legislative and oversight responsibilities — the Committee must obtain evidence and testimony in a timely manner,” the filing reads.

T-Mobile’s $26.5B Sprint deal OK’d despite competition fears

WASHINGTON — U.S. regulators have approved T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion takeover of rival Sprint, despite fears of higher prices and job cuts, in a deal that would leave just three major cellphone companies in the country.

Friday’s approval from the Justice Department and five state attorneys general comes after Sprint and T-Mobile agreed to conditions that would set up satellite-TV provider Dish as a smaller rival to Verizon, AT&T and the combined T-Mobile-Sprint company. The Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, said the conditions set up Dish “as a disruptive force in wireless.”

But attorneys general from other states and public-interest advocates say that Dish is hardly a replacement for Sprint as a stand-alone company and that the conditions fail to address the competitive harm the deal causes: higher prices, job losses and fewer choices for consumers.

“By signing off on this merger, the Justice Department has done nothing to remedy the short- and long-term harms the loss of an independent Sprint will create for U.S. wireless users,” said S. Derek Turner, research director for the advocacy group Free Press.

A federal judge still must sign off on the approval, as the two companies’ settlement with Justice includes conditions for them. The Federal Communications Commission is expected to also give the takeover its blessing.

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Girls are bearing the brunt of a rise in US cyberbullying

SEATTLE — Rachel Whalen remembers feeling gutted in high school when a former friend would mock her online postings, threaten to unfollow or unfriend her on social media and post inside jokes about her to others online.

The cyberbullying was so distressing that Whalen said she contemplated suicide. Once she got help, she decided to limit her time on social media. It helps to take a break from it for perspective, said Whalen, now a 19-year-old college student in Utah.

There’s a rise in cyberbullying nationwide, with three times as many girls reporting being harassed online or by text message than boys, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The U.S. Department of Education’s research and data arm this month released its latest survey, which shows an uptick in online abuse, though the overall number of students who report being bullied stayed the same.

“There’s just some pressure in that competitive atmosphere that is all about attention,” Whalen said. “This social media acceptance — it just makes sense to me that it’s more predominant amongst girls.”

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Judge weighs whether to force Georgia to use paper ballots

ATLANTA — Georgia allowed its election system to grow “way too old and archaic” and now has a deep hole to dig out of to ensure that the constitutional right to vote is protected, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said Friday.

Now Totenberg is in the difficult position of having to decide whether the state, which plans to implement a new voting system statewide next year, must immediately abandon its outdated voting machines in favor of an interim solution for special and municipal elections to be held this fall.

Election integrity advocates and individual voters sued Georgia in 2017 alleging that the touchscreen voting machines the state has used since 2002 are unsecure and vulnerable to hacking. They’ve asked Totenberg to order the state to immediately switch to hand-marked paper ballots.

But lawyers for Fulton County, the state’s most populous county that includes most of Atlanta, and for state election officials argued that the state is in the process of implementing a new system, and it would be too costly, burdensome and chaotic to use an interim system for elections this fall and then switch to the new permanent system next year.

A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system in which voters make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. State officials have said it will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.