Tag Archives: Donald Trump

California judge seeks to prevent immigration arrests inside state courts

FILE PHOTO: Sacramento appeals court justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye gestures during a news conference after being unanimously confirmed to become the state's next chief justice in San Francisco, California August 25, 2010. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court on Thursday asked the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to prevent immigration agents from arresting undocumented immigrants inside the state’s courthouses.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said she was gravely troubled by recent reports that federal agents were “stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests,” in a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.

“Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our country’s immigration law,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote.

Trump has vowed to increase deportations and has widened the net of illegal immigrants prioritized for detention and removal.

“We will review the letter and have no further comment at this time,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in an email.

Immigrant rights groups say federal agents have entered courthouses with increased frequency this year, including in California, Massachusetts, Maryland and Texas, said National Immigration Law Center staff attorney Melissa Keaney.

“It’s definitely an issue we’re seeing a tremendous increase in under the new administration,” Keaney said by phone on Thursday.

Reuters could not independently confirm whether there has been an uptick in arrests at courthouses.

Cantil-Sakauye stopped short of questioning the legal right of federal agents to enter courthouses to locate and detain unauthorized immigrants.

Her letter said the presence of immigration agents in California courthouses could undermine “public trust and confidence in our state court system,” which serves “millions of the most vulnerable Californians.”

It could also discourage even legal immigrants from seeking justice, said Cathal Conneely, a spokesman for the Judicial Council of California, a branch of state courts.

Green-card holders, those who are permanent U.S. residents but not citizens, already leery of the justice system because of experiences in their countries of origin could be further dissuaded from entering courthouses, he said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Patrick Enright and Leslie Adler)

Trump vows to appeal against travel ban ruling to Supreme Court

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the American Center for Mobility for American Manufactured Vehicles in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, U.S. March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg

HONOLULU/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A defiant Donald Trump has pledged to appeal against a federal judge’s order placing an immediate halt on his revised travel ban, describing the ruling as judicial overreach that made the United States look weak.

In granting the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit by the state of Hawaii, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson found on Wednesday that “a reasonable, objective observer … would conclude that the executive order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion.”

Early on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in a similar case in Maryland brought by refugee resettlement agencies represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center.

Chuang ruled that the agencies were likely to succeed in proving that the travel ban portion of the executive order was intended to be a ban on Muslims and, as a result, violates the U.S. Constitution’s religious freedom protection.

“To avoid sowing seeds of division in our nation, upholding this fundamental constitutional principle at the core of our nation’s identity plainly serves a significant public interest,” Chuang wrote in his ruling.

The actions were the latest legal blow to the administration’s efforts to temporarily ban refugees as well as travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The president has said the ban is needed for national security.

However, the orders, while a victory for the plaintiffs, are only a first step and the government could ultimately win its underlying case. Watson and Chuang were appointed to the bench by former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump, speaking after the Hawaii ruling at a rally in Nashville, called his revised executive order a “watered-down version” of his first.

The president said he would take the case “as far as it needs to go,” including to the Supreme Court, in order to get a ruling that the ban is legal.

The likely next stop if the administration decides to contest the Hawaii judge’s ruling would be the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Three judges on the Ninth Circuit upheld a restraining order on the first travel ban issued by a Washington state judge.

At that point, the government’s legal options were to ask for a hearing by a larger panel of judges or petition the Supreme Court to hear the case. Instead, the administration withdrew the ban, promising to retool it in ways that would address the legal issues.

If the Ninth Circuit were to uphold the Hawaii court’s ruling, an appeal to the Supreme Court would be complicated by its current makeup of four conservative and four liberal judges, with no ninth justice since the death of Antonin Scalia more than a year ago.

The travel ban has deeply divided the country on liberal and conservative lines, and it is unlikely that a ninth Supreme Court justice would be seated in time to hear an appeal in this case.

Trump signed the new ban on March 6 in a bid to overcome legal problems with his January executive order, which caused chaos at airports and sparked mass protests before a Washington judge stopped its enforcement in February.

Watson’s order is only temporary until the broader arguments in the case can be heard. He set an expedited hearing schedule to determine if his ruling should be extended.

Trump’s first travel order was more sweeping than the second revised order. Like the current one, it barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days, but it also included Iraq, which was subsequently taken off the list.

The revised ban also excluded legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and provided waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the United States.

Hawaii and other opponents of the ban claimed that the motivation behind it was Trump’s campaign promise of “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

In Washington state, a group of plaintiffs applying for immigrant visas asked U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle – who suspended the first ban – to stop the new order. Robart was appointed to the bench by Republican former President George W. Bush.

Judge Robart said he would issue a written ruling, but did not specify a time line.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in Honolulu, Mica Rosenberg in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Toby Chopra)

In week of Middle East talks, Trump envoy avoids disruption

Jason Greenblatt (L), U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem March 13, 2017. Courtesy Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Handout via REUTERS

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has spent the week shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Jordanian capital Amman on his first official visit to the region, pursuing quiet diplomacy and avoiding controversy.

A real estate lawyer who has worked for Trump for 20 years, Jason Greenblatt has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah and other senior officials during a busy round of talks that U.S. diplomats have described as a “listening tour”.

Rather than some of the bold pronouncements Trump himself has made on the region – last month he said he didn’t mind if there was a one-state or two-state solution to the conflict — Greenblatt, 49, has been circumspect, issuing a few tweets but not speaking to the media.

“President Abbas and I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces and stopping incitement,” he wrote on Twitter, preceded by a picture of him shaking hands warmly with the Palestinian leader.

The readout from the Palestinians and King Abdullah after their meetings was positive, if largely sticking to standard diplomatic pronouncements about the importance of peace negotiations and their ability to transform the region.

Social media commentators were quick to point out that Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew, had shown a notable degree of religious flexibility during his visit that may reflect a desire to be open and diplomatic: he has not worn his kippa, a skull cap worn by religious Jewish men, all week.

In official pictures, Greenblatt, a father of six who studied at a Talmudic high school and Yeshiva University, is usually seen wearing a black kippa, the type favor by devout men. Before landing in Israel, he posted a picture of his prayer shawl and other religious accoutrements.

“ULTIMATE DEAL”?

One of the criticisms Palestinians have made of Trump is that he is too pro-Israel, especially with his promise during the campaign to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his soft-pedalling on Israeli settlement-building.

The settlements are built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – seized by Israel in a 1967 war and occupied for nearly 50 years – where Palestinians want to establish their state and capital.

Since taking office, Trump has modified his positions to an extent, rowing back on any quick embassy move and calling on Netanyahu during their White House meeting last month to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

The main point of discussion during five hours of talks between Greenblatt and Netanyahu on Tuesday was settlements, an Israeli official said, with the two sides seeking to come to an accommodation over how much Israel can build and where.

Netanyahu and Greenblatt will meet for more talks later on Thursday, before the U.S. envoy returns to Washington.

“Our intention is to reach an agreed policy for building in settlements which is agreeable to us, not only to the Americans,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting.

“Of course, this will help Israel after a period of many years during which we were not involved in such processes.”

The Obama administration said Israel’s settlement building was jeopardizing peace efforts, and Abbas has said they must stop before negotiations can resume.

U.S. officials indicated that Greenblatt, who is officially Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, would report back directly to the president on his trip, rather than to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

They said it was the first of numerous visits he is expected to make to the region as the Trump administration pursues its goal of reviving negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and striking what Trump calls “the ultimate deal”.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Courts to hear arguments challenging Trump’s new travel ban

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump attends a meeting with U.S. House Deputy Whip team at the East room of the White House in Washington, U.S. March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – Court hearings in Hawaii and Maryland on Wednesday could decide the immediate fate of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, which is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Thursday.

The courts have been asked in lawsuits challenging the ban to issue restraining orders that would prevent it from taking effect pending resolution of the litigation.

The new order, which temporarily bars the entry of most refugees as well as travelers from six Muslim-majority countries, was signed by the president on March 6, with a 10-day lag before it took effect.

It replaced an earlier, broader order that was signed amid much fanfare a week after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The first order temporarily banned travelers from seven countries in addition to most refugees and took effect immediately, causing chaos and protests at airports across the country and around the globe.

States and civil rights groups filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the first order, arguing it discriminated against Muslims and violated the U.S. Constitution.

In response to a lawsuit by Washington state, a federal judge in Seattle last month issued a nationwide halt to the first order. That decision was upheld by a U.S. appeals court.

The Trump administration made changes in an attempt to address the judges’ concerns. But the states and civil rights groups went back to court arguing the new ban did not solve the problems and should be stopped.

‘WHO WOULD BE HARMED?’

One central question likely to be raised at the hearings is who would be harmed by the new ban. The administration in its new order explicitly exempts legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and provides a series of waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the United States.

While the new order still bars citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days, Iraq is no longer on the list. Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria was deleted.

To succeed, the plaintiffs must show they have “standing” to challenge the ban, which means they must have been harmed by the policy.

If they get past that hurdle, the plaintiffs will argue that both the new ban and the old discriminate on the basis of religion and are unconstitutional.

The Trump administration disputes that allegation, citing as evidence that many Muslim-majority countries are not included in the ban.

In the Hawaii case, the island state says its universities and tourist economy would be harmed by the restrictions on travel.

Hawaii also sued in conjunction with a plaintiff named Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen from Egypt who is an imam at the Muslim Association of Hawaii. Elshikh says his family will be harmed if his mother-in-law, who lives in Syria, is prevented from visiting because of the restrictions.

The government in its response to Hawaii said Elshikh had not been harmed because the ban allows for waivers, and his mother-in-law could apply for one.

In the Maryland case, the American Civil Liberties Union is representing refugee resettlement agencies it says will be hurt by the ban because it affects their operations. The ACLU adds that some of the agencies’ clients are in conflict zones and face imminent danger even if they are only temporarily barred from the United States.

“All of those exemptions and waivers were an effort to shore up this discriminatory order after the fact,” said Cecillia Wang, ACLU deputy legal director told reporters on a conference call with reporters.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Dan Levine in Honolulu; Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Greenbelt, Md.; Editing by Sue Horton and Peter Cooney)

Trump Middle East envoy meets Palestinian leader Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy held his first talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, amid Palestinian concerns that the new administration in Washington is more favorably disposed toward Israel.

Jason Greenblatt’s talks with Abbas took place in Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government, a day after he held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“President Abbas & I discussed how to make progress toward peace, building capacity of Palestinian security forces & stopping incitement,” Greenblatt tweeted after the meeting.

In a separate statement issued by the U.S. Consulate General, the two men “reaffirmed the commitment of both the Palestinian Authority and the United States to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.

Abbas stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve a two-state solution, the statement added.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014. Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has been ambivalent about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy in the region for the past two decades.

“I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like … I can live with either one,” Trump told a Feb. 15 news conference during a visit to Washington by Netanyahu, causing consternation across the Arab world and in many European capitals.

However, Trump last Friday held his first telephone conversation with Abbas since becoming president and invited him to the White House.

Tuesday’s statement said Abbas had told Greenblatt he believed that under Trump’s leadership “a historic peace deal was possible”.

Abbas and Greenblatt also discussed plans to strengthen the Palestinian economy and the importance of ensuring economic opportunities for Palestinians, the statement said.

On Monday, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security”, the Israeli leader’s office said.

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Greenblatt, a longtime top lawyer in Trump’s company, also serves as the president’s special negotiator for trade deals, among other responsibilities.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Several states jointly sue to block Trump’s revised travel ban

DAY 46 / MARCH 6: President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order banning citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the United States but removing Iraq from the list, after his controversial first attempt was blocked in the courts.

By Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – A group of states renewed their effort on Monday to block President Donald Trump’s revised temporary ban on refugees and travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, arguing that his executive order is the same as the first one that was halted by federal courts.

Court papers filed by the state of Washington and joined by California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon asked a judge to stop the March 6 order from taking effect on Thursday.

An amended complaint said the order was similar to the original Jan. 27 directive because it “will cause severe and immediate harms to the States, including our residents, our colleges and universities, our healthcare providers, and our businesses.”

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said it was reviewing the complaint and would respond to the court.

A more sweeping ban implemented hastily in January caused chaos and protests at airports. The March order by contrast gave 10 days’ notice to travelers and immigration officials.

Last month, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the first travel ban after Washington state sued, claiming the order was discriminatory and violated the U.S. Constitution. Robart’s order was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump revised his order to overcome some of the legal hurdles by including exemptions for legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and taking Iraq off the list of countries covered. The new order still halts citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days but has explicit waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the country.

Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria.

Washington state has now gone back to Robart to ask him to apply his emergency halt to the new ban.

Robart said in a court order Monday that the government has until Tuesday to respond to the states’ motions. He said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday and did not commit to a specific date to hear arguments from both sides.

PROVING HARM

Separately, Hawaii has also sued over the new ban. The island state, which is heavily dependent on tourism, said the executive order has had a “chilling effect” on travel revenues.

In response to Hawaii’s lawsuit, the Department of Justice in court papers filed on Monday said the president has broad authority to “restrict or suspend entry of any class of aliens when in the national interest.” The department said the temporary suspensions will allow a review of the current screening process in an effort to protect against terrorist attacks.

There is a hearing in the Hawaii case set for Wednesday, the day before the new ban is set to go into effect.

The first hurdle for the lawsuits will be proving “standing,” which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals who would have a right to sue, in the eyes of a court.

To overcome this challenge, the states filed more than 70 declarations of people affected by the order including tech businesses Amazon and Expedia, which said that restricting travel hurts their revenues and their ability to recruit employees.

Universities and medical centers that rely on foreign doctors also weighed in, as did religious organizations and individual residents, including U.S. citizens, with stories about separated families.

But the Trump administration in its filings in the Hawaii case on Monday said the carve-outs in the new order undercut the state’s standing claims.

“The Order applies only to individuals outside the country who do not have a current visa, and even as to them, it sets forth robust waiver provisions,” the Department of Justice’s motion said.

The government cited Supreme Court precedent in arguing that people outside the United States and seeking admission for the first time have “no constitutional rights” regarding their applications.

If the courts do end up ruling the states have standing to sue, the next step will be to argue that both versions of the executive order discriminate against Muslims.

“The Trump Administration may have changed the text of the now-discredited Muslim travel ban, but they didn’t change its unconstitutional intent and effect,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Monday.

While the text of the order does not mention Islam, the states claim that the motivation behind the policy is Trump’s campaign promise of “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He later toned down that language and said he would implement a policy of “extreme vetting” of foreigners coming to the United States.

The government said the courts should only look at the text of the order and not at outside comments by Trump or his aides.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

Suspect arrested after scaling White House fence, Secret Service says

FILE PHOTO: A restricted area sign is seen outside of the White House in Washington November 27, 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Emily Stephenson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An intruder carrying a backpack was arrested after scaling a fence and entering the White House grounds, the U.S. Secret Service said on Saturday, in the latest breach of security at the president’s official residence.

President Donald Trump was inside the White House when a male suspect scaled the complex’s South Grounds fence at 11:38 p.m. on Friday, and uniformed officers arrested him, the Secret Service said in a statement.

Trump was not in any danger during the incident, CNN reported, citing an unnamed source.

A 2014 intrusion at the White House prompted the resignation of Secret Service director Julia Pierson and a series of recommendations to tighten security. In 2015, a row of sharp spikes was bolted to the top of the black iron fence surrounding the property.

In the latest incident, the suspect was apprehended near the south portico entrance, where presidents often address the public, CNN said. The entrance is near the part of the White House where the president resides.

Authorities did not immediately identify the suspect but Martin Mulholland, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said he had no arrest record or history with the agency, which is charged with protecting the president, his family and other elected officials.

The backpack carried by the intruder was screened and searched as a precaution, and no hazardous material was found, according the statement. The Secret Service searched the north and south grounds but nothing of concern turned up.

Neither the Secret Service nor the White House responded immediately to a request for further details.

SECURITY SHAKEUP

The most serious of the recent security incidents at the White House occurred in September 2014, when an Army veteran carrying a knife climbed the fence and pushed his way inside the building before he was stopped.

Another man wearing an American flag jumped the fence in November 2015. In April 2016, an intruder threw a backpack over the outer fence and then scaled it before getting arrested.

The Secret Service and National Park Service have been working on a new fence design and other upgrades.

Joseph Clancy, her replacement, said in February that he planned to step down in March, allowing Trump to name his own security chief.

The service’s credibility was also damaged in 2012 when it was revealed that members had hired prostitutes while in Colombia in advance of a trip by then-President Barack Obama.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Franklin Paul)

Trump’s revised travel ban dealt first court setback

Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the United States.

The temporary restraining order, granted by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison, applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who brought the case anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and daughter, still living in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.

But it represents the first of several challenges brought against Trump’s newly amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go into effect on March 16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its enforcement.

Conley, chief judge of the federal court in Wisconsin’s western district and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded the plaintiff “has presented some likelihood of success on the merits” of his case and that his family faces “significant risk of irreparable harm” if forced to remain in Syria.

The plaintiff, a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the United States in 2014 to “escape near-certain death” at the hands of sectarian military forces fighting the Syrian government in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.

He subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving child, a daughter, and their application had cleared the security vetting process and was headed for final processing when it was halted by Trump’s original travel ban on Jan. 27.

That executive order sought to ban admission to the United States of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq – for 120 days and to suspend entry of all refugees indefinitely.

The original travel ban, which caused widespread chaos and protests at airports when first implemented, was rescinded after the state of Washington won a nationwide federal court order blocking further enforcement of the policy.

The modified executive order reduced the number of excluded counties – removing Iraq from the list – and lifted the indefinite refugee travel ban for Syrians. But opponents from several states have gone to court seeking to halt its implementation as well.

“The court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original executive order, and the revised executive order,” Conley wrote in his decision. “As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other courts.”

In a related development on Friday, the federal judge in Seattle who imposed a nationwide injunction on enforcement of the original travel ban refused a request to apply that order to the revised policy, saying that lawyers from states opposed to the measure needed to file more extensive court papers.

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Sandra Maler and Mary Milliken)

U.S. civil liberties group, ACLU, seeks to tap anti-Trump energy

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union is launching what it bills as the first grassroots mobilization effort in its nearly 100-year history, as it seeks to harness a surge of energy among left-leaning activists since the November election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president.

The campaign, known as PeoplePower, kicks off on Saturday with a town hall-style event in Miami featuring “resistance training” that will be streamed live at more than 2,300 local gatherings nationwide.

It will focus on free speech, reproductive rights and immigration and include presentations from legal experts, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero and “Top Chef” television star Padma Lakshmi.

Membership in the civil rights organization, which was founded in 1920, has tripled to more than 1 million since Trump’s election, the group says.

As activists have marched in streets, demonstrated at airports and confronted U.S. lawmakers regularly since election day, progressive groups like MoveOn and the newly formed Indivisible have sought ways to translate that frustration into local action.

That is the idea behind PeoplePower, which represents a major strategic shift for an organization that has traditionally focused on courtroom litigation, Romero said in a phone interview on Friday. Approximately 135,000 people have signed up for the campaign.

“Before, our membership was largely older and much smaller,” he said. “Our members would provide us with money so we could file the cases and do the advocacy. What’s clear with the Trump election is that our new members are engaged and want to be deployed.”

For example, the Miami event will encourage individuals to engage local officials in conversations about immigrant policies in their town or city. The ACLU has prepared “model” ordinances ensuring the protection of immigrant rights that supporters can press legislators to adopt, part of a campaign to create “freedom cities,” according to ACLU political director Faiz Shakir.

Suggested tactics, like the use of text messages as a mass mobilization tool, will mirror some of those employed by the insurgent presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who mounted a surprisingly robust challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

“It’s completely unprecedented,” Romero said of the response since Trump’s victory. “People are wide awake right now and have been since the night of the election.”

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Assad says yet to see real steps on Islamic State by Trump, U.S. forces ‘invaders’

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 11, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he had yet to see “anything concrete” from U.S. President Donald Trump over his vow to defeat Islamic State and called U.S. forces in Syria “invaders” because they were there without government permission.

Assad, in an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix, said “in theory” he still saw scope for cooperation with Trump though practically nothing had happened in this regard.

Assad said Trump’s campaign pledge to prioritize the defeat of Islamic State had been “a promising approach” but added: “We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric.”

Assad dismissed the U.S.-backed military campaign against Islamic State in Syria as “only a few raids” he said had been conducted locally. “We have hopes that this administration … is going to implement what we have heard,” he added.

Asked about a deployment of U.S. forces near the northern city of Manbij, Assad said: “Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation … are invaders.”

“We don’t think this is going to help”.

The U.S.-led coalition has been attacking Islamic State in Syria for more than two years. It is currently backing a campaign by Syrian militia allies to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria.

Assad noted that the Russian-backed Syrian army was now “very close” to Raqqa city after advancing to the western banks of the Euphrates River.

He said Raqqa was “a priority for us”, but indicated that there could also be a parallel attack by the army towards Deir al-Zor in the east, near the Iraqi border. Deir al-Zor province is almost completely in the control of IS, also known as ISIS.

The Deir al-Zor region had been “used by ISIS as a route for logistics support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria, so whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it (has) the same result”, Assad said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra)