The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has hamstrung the Trump Administration’s use of government information to combat illegal immigration and voter fraud. A Virginia mom received a 6-month suspended jail sentence for letting her 5-year-old walk to a neighborhood pond. And, we review other legal developments, from the Trump Administration’s fight to secure federal-election ballots sent by mail to the termination of federal employees for criticizing Pentagon policies.
D.C. Court of Appeals fights the Trump Administration
On September 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded that the IRS improperly shared taxpayer records with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). The IRS had provided these records at the requests of the ICE Acting Director, who sought to determine the last known address of illegal aliens who had failed to leave the United States after receiving a final order of removal.
In its 3-0 opinion, the Court of Appeals claimed that sharing this information violated federal laws that make confidential the disclosure of tax returns and information within those returns. Although federal law does allow for the IRS to divulge taxpayer information in association with a criminal investigation, the Court of Appeals concluded that the agencies did not follow the proper procedures in sharing this information. For those reasons, the Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s stay of the data-exchange program and enjoined further disclosures by the IRS to ICE without notice to the court. We expect the Trump Administration will soon ask the Supreme Court to review this case.
This follows a recent per curium decision by same Court that ruled against the Trump Administration’s effort to use government databases to verify the citizenship or immigration status of persons who have registered to vote. Remarkably, a D.C. district court held that Trump’s plan violated federal law and that its adoption was arbitrary and capricious. The Court of Appeals refused to change that ruling pending appeal.
The Trump Administration has now asked the Supreme Court to allow it to proceed to use government databases “pending further proceedings in the D.C. Circuit and this Court,” arguing that the district court’s order “threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by States to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes.” The challengers’ response to the government’s Supreme Court filing is due by September 15, 2026.
Virginia mom convicted for letting her 5-year-old son walk to a pond
In Virginia, a mom was convicted for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” for “allowing her 5-year-old son to walk about a half-mile by himself in their gated community” to collect goose feathers near their community pond. Her son had made that walk a number of times, and he was mature and trustworthy for his age – it should have been an uneventful and short excursion for the boy—the kind of adventure most people over forty were regularly allowed to enjoy during their childhoods.
Yet, this became a nightmare for the family. A community security guard was incensed the boy was walking alone. He contacted CPS and the police. The mom was investigated by CPS for abuse and neglect, and CPS placed her “on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry.” Local prosecutors charged her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and she was convicted by a judge for a first-degree misdemeanor. Her six-month jail sentence was suspended pending good behavior.
Law professor Jonathan Adler knows the mom and attended the trial. He observed that she has appealed the judgment and is entitled to a jury. Adler also noted that while there are risks when parents are too permissive with their children, there are also risks associated with being too restrictive of their children, which can lead to stunted development or raising a child that lacks “fortitude and resilience.” Parenting is a difficult enough endeavor, and parents “should not have to worry about government officials second-guessing their choices or threatening criminal charges if a given cop or prosecutor determines a given choice was too permissive.”
In other news:
The Trump Administration has asked the Supreme Court to pause a ruling by a Massachusetts federal judge that stopped implementation of Post Office rules concerning “modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via U.S. Mail.” Approximately two weeks ago, a similar order by this same federal judge was reversed by the Supreme Court.
NBC10 Boston has published interviews with jurors from the Lindsay Clancy trial that details their thoughts on the case and provides insights into the jury deliberations and the lone hold-out that refused to vote not guilty by reason of insanity.
A federal district court judge in the District of Columbia has denied a request to temporarily stop the termination of three civilian employees of Stars and Stripes (“Stripes”), a news organization funded by the Department of Defense. These employees were terminated after criticizing the changes that the Pentagon made to Stripes’ operations. The district court observed that their termination did not violate the First Amendment, because “when government employees provide public commentary in their official capacity, their speech is government speech, and the First Amendment does not apply.”
The outdoor company Patagonia, and tribal and environmental groups, have filed lawsuits that challenge President Trump’s proclamations that: (1) reduced the area of the Bears Ears National Monument (“Monument”) in Utah, which encompassed over 1.3 million acres, and (2) disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, an advisory body representing tribal nations that provided recommendations on the management of the Monument. According to the White House, the actions by President Trump reversed orders from Presidents Obama and Biden, which served to “lock up millions of acres of Utah’s public lands, impoverishing local communities and sharply restricting access for recreation, grazing, resource development, and fire prevention.”
Wrongly in our view, the Supreme Court has denied a Christian parent’s request for an injunction that would have preserved their son’s enrollment in kindergarten while his vaccine exemption case remains pending in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The student’s parent argued that New York’s vaccine requirement is unconstitutional because it contains no religious exemption to the vaccines mandated by the State. Justices Alito and Gorsuch would have granted the parent’s request. This means the child will have to drop out of kindergarten to be protected from the vaccines.
