Beside sheer brutality, there is a clear strategic reason that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents quickly whisked Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil out of New York City last weekend. It’s the reason he was first transported to New Jersey, then to a private detention center in Louisiana. And it’s why the Trump administration is fighting to keep him there, more than a thousand miles away from his pregnant wife and lawyers.

That reason: Ravi Ragbir, whose court victories against the first Trump administration regarding his own retaliatory detention made New York a far less friendly forum for the government.

“Their intent is to intimidate, to create fear among people who don’t agree with them,” Ragbir told The Intercept in an interview.

Like Khalil, Ragbir is an activist in New York City who was targeted for deportation over his speech during the first Trump administration. Like Khalil, Ragbir was quickly flown to a far-off detention center — in his case, in Miami — as his family, friends, and attorney frantically tried to locate him. And like Khalil, whose attorney worked through the night to file a rapid petition for his release, Ragbir quickly challenged his detention and deportation.

In 2019, Ragbir won a ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — the federal appellate court that covers New York — that affirmed noncitizens’ right to challenge targeted deportations as unconstitutional retaliation under the First Amendment.

The 2nd Circuit’s decision in Ragbir’s favor is a powerful shield, not just for Khalil but also others the Trump administration has vowed to detain and deport based on Palestinian solidarity protests and activism. But that decision is only binding law within the 2nd Circuit’s jurisdiction — and not in states which fall under different federal appellate courts, such as Louisiana.

Related

ICE Secretly Hauled Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers Allege

Avoiding the Ragbir precedent is precisely why ICE moved Khalil so quickly, his attorneys argued in a motion demanding that ICE bring him back to New York. Indeed, two Department of Homeland Security officials recently told The Atlantic that Khalil was moved to Louisiana “to seek the most favorable venue” for the government’s arguments.

“The Court need not accept such brazen interference with its role in assessing the legality of government action,” Khalil’s attorneys wrote to the federal judge in New York currently overseeing his case. In filings, the government countered that Khalil’s challenge belongs in Louisiana, in what will be the first of many legal battles.

“ICE will want to drag this on as long as possible,” Ragbir said.

Ragbir’s ordeal shows the lengths that Khalil and his legal team will need to go to secure his freedom and his right to stay in the United States. It also underscores just how dramatic an escalation Khalil’s case represents, even judged against the first Trump administration’s weaponization of the immigration system against dissent.

In January 2018, Ragbir was the director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, an immigrants’ rights group. He was a regular fixture at demonstrations and prayer vigils outside ICE’s office in Manhattan, and over the past year he had generated considerable negative press for the Trump administration’s tactics.

“It was so clear when Ravi was detained back in 2018 that he was being targeted because of his public speaking, his public presence,” his wife, Amy Gottlieb, an immigration attorney at the American Friends Service Committee, told The Intercept. “He was really calling out ICE for its behavior.”

Originally from Trinidad, Ragbir has lived in the U.S. since 1991 and got his green card in 1994. But after being convicted of wire fraud — charges he fought unsuccessfully, including on appeal — and serving a federal prison sentence, he was detained by ICE in 2006 and ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2007.

In early 2008, ICE released Ragbir while he appealed the deportation order. For the next nine years, ICE routinely extended his actual deportation date, and he was allowed to work as a full-time organizer with the New Sanctuary Coalition, on condition that he appear at regular check-ins.

Then Donald Trump came to power, and what were once routine check-ins became, for many immigrants, the prospect of an arrest. In March 2017, Ragbir showed up to his check-in with a crowd of supporters, including city and state officials. The spectacle generated some “resentment” within ICE, a top official told Ragbir’s attorney, according to court filings, as did his protest vigils.

Related

As ICE Targets Immigrant Rights Activists for Deportation, Suspicious Vehicles Outside Churches Stoke Surveillance Fears

When Ragbir went in for his next check-in with his wife and legal team in January 2018, they “hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst,” Gottlieb said. The week before, ICE had arrested one of Ragbir’s colleagues at his home in Queens, then quickly deported him to Haiti before he could file a challenge.

“When we got there, they told us this is the end of the road,” Ragbir said. When Ragbir fainted at the stress, ICE took him to the hospital before driving him to Newark and putting him on a plane to Miami.

Gottlieb had no idea where her husband was being held until the next morning, she said.

“They did not tell me or his wife where they were taking him,” said Alina Das, a law professor and co-director of New York University’s immigrant rights clinic, who represented Ragbir, “or why they would need to take him all the way down to Florida when there are so many detention centers in the area.”

Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said that “ICE’s normal MO includes transferring people far from their loved ones, often unexpectedly, making it much more difficult for them to successfully defend their deportation.”

“I am sure the administration is realizing they can use it as a form of retaliation,” she added.

This set off the first stage of Ragbir’s legal challenge to his detention: getting him back to New York. Similar to their tactics in Khalil’s case, the government initially argued that, since Ragbir was already out-of-state by the time a judge ordered he not be moved — he was put on the flight to Florida “several minutes” before the order came down, the government claimed — they had no obligation to bring him back. But after some cajoling by the judge, the government agreed to transfer him back after holding him in Florida for a week.

“He’s going to be suffering in Louisiana, his family is going to be suffering,” Ragbir said of Khalil. “Those are the games ICE will play to keep him in detention as long possible, hoping he’ll give up — and also to send a signal to other noncitizens, to quiet them.”

Next, the court considered Ragbir’s petition to be released from custody as he filed more challenges to his deportation. For years, ICE had not considered him a flight or safety risk requiring detention, but still the government fought to keep him in the Orange County jail, near Goshen, New York, a two-hour drive each way for Gottlieb to visit him. 

In late January 2018, the judge granted his petition, ruling that the Trump administration had violated Ragbir’s right to an “orderly departure” — the opportunity to settle affairs and say goodbyes before leaving the country.

“A man we have allowed to live among us for years, to build a family and participate in the life of the community, was detained, handcuffed, forcibly placed on an airplane, and today finds himself in a prison cell,” wrote Judge Katherine B. Forrest. “We as a country need and must not act so. The Constitution demands better.”

Ragbir was released the same afternoon, and two weeks later he filed the lawsuit that would ultimately win the ruling that the government would prefer to avoid in Khalil’s case.

In April 2019, the 2nd Circuit ruled Ragbir’s advocacy “implicates the apex of protection under the First Amendment,” and that he offered “strong” evidence that ICE officials decided to deport him when they did “based on their disfavor of Ragbir’s speech (and its prominence).” Such retaliation was grounds to challenge his deportation, the majority determined.

The government appealed the groundbreaking decision to the Supreme Court, which in October 2020 sent the case back to the district court for additional consideration in light of a recent decision about deportation challenges, but without overruling the 2nd Circuit’s opinion.

Related

ICE Settles With Immigrant Rights Leader Who Sued Over First Amendment Violations

In 2022, under the Biden administration, Ragbir settled his case, and the government agreed not to deport him for three years. And on his last day in office in January, President Joe Biden pardoned Ragbir’s fraud conviction, thus eliminating the grounds for his deportation. Where the Trump administration fought for years to deport Ragbir over his criticism and protest, Biden pardoned him in recognition of his role as a leader and advocate for immigrants’ rights.

“I am numb,” Ragbir said on “Democracy Now!” later that week, “after all those years of living under this, I am numb because I have always had to steel myself against what was going to happen.”

So far, Khalil’s and Ragbir’s cases have followed similar trajectories: high-profile activism contrary to Trump’s tastes, an abrupt arrest, followed by a punitive rendition to detention far from home.

“Khalil was taken from a jurisdiction that has recognized that immigrants have a right to pursue First Amendment retaliation claims,” Das said, “which is another reason why moving him outside this area is extremely disturbing.”

There are key distinctions, however, which only heighten fears about what lies ahead for Khalil and other activists who become targets.

To start, far from having a deportation order based on any underlying crime, Khalil has a valid green card, which the Trump administration argues it can revoke through an arcane, little-used provision of federal law. And unlike with Ragbir, the government has already indicated it will fight to keep Khalil away from New York, in briefs filed late Wednesday.

Most significant, however, is just how much more explicit the Trump administration has been in targeting Khalil for his activism. 

“What’s new here is the blatant retaliation,” said National Immigration Law Center’s Altman. 

“This really comes down to instilling panic, fear, and chaos,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition.

On Wednesday, the Manhattan federal judge overseeing Khalil’s case set an expedited schedule to brief the questions of where he should be held and which court should decide his fate. Khalil also has an initial immigration hearing scheduled for March 21 in Louisiana.

Khalil’s case has simultaneously sparked protests while sending a chilling message to pro-Palestinian activists, with Trump promising that he is the “first of many” to be detained and deported.

Ragbir, who knows the chill of being targeted better than most, has joined the protests in New York City supporting Khalil’s release. He’s been heartened to see broad support for Khalil, particularly the petition signed by more than 3 million people so far.

“We cannot just hide and hope,” he said. “We are going to hope. But we work in that hope.”

The post Why Trump Is So Desperate to Keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

Since the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, his attorneys have fought any suggestion that this case is about whether their client committed a crime or is a threat to national security. Instead, they say, it’s about the U.S. government stifling Khalil’s advocacy for Palestine.

Even the government agrees it’s not about committing a crime.

According to court filings obtained by The Intercept, the government’s main argument against Khalil rests on a civil law provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs the country’s immigration and citizenship system. The provision, known as Section 237(a)(4)(c)(i), gives the secretary of state the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests. 

Department of Homeland Security agents arrested Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian whose family is from Tiberias, in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment on Saturday. After initially alleging they had revoked his student visa, they said they had instead revoked Khalil’s green card. Authorities then secretly transported Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, from New York to New Jersey, then to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana where judges are known to be more favorable to the government’s legal arguments.

Related

ICE Secretly Hauled Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers Allege

In a notice for Khalil to appear in immigration court in Louisiana where he remains jailed, the government cites the specific provision and states: “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Government lawyers have not, however, provided any evidence, in court filings or hearings, to support their claim. Khalil refused to sign the notice. 

Khalil’s legal team plans to fight the government’s “foreign policy” provision in both the push for his release in federal court and in his deportation proceedings in immigration court, said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of Khalil’s legal team. A Manhattan federal district court judge temporarily halted Khalil from being deported while his lawyers continue to push for his release and transfer back to New York, where his attorneys can represent him more easily and he can be closer to his wife who is eight months pregnant.

Khalil’s attorneys plan to contest his detention on free speech grounds under the First Amendment and by challenging the government’s use of the “foreign policy” provision. By evoking the “foreign policy” provision, the Trump administration is making a clear statement not just about its foreign policy goals but also free speech, Azmy said.

“The United States government thinks Mahmoud’s speech in favor of Palestinian human rights and to end the genocide is not only contrary to U.S. foreign policy, which is something in itself, but that that dissent provides grounds for arrest, detention, and deportation,” Azmy said. “It’s an astonishing claim.”

Central to their challenge in court will likely be another provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act that exempts noncitizens facing deportation under the government’s “foreign policy” provision. The exception, known as Section 212(a)(3)(C)(iii), says that an individual cannot be deported under the “foreign policy” provision cited by the government if their “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

In other words, since Khalil’s past activities were protected free speech under the First Amendment, he should not be deported under the “foreign policy” provision cited by the government, Azmy said. The Department of Homeland Security has said it arrested Khalil, a lead negotiator for Palestine solidarity protesters at Columbia, for having “led activities aligned to Hamas.” But even if such alignments exist, advocacy is protected activity in the U.S., Khalil’s attorneys maintain.

“If there is constitutionally protected speech,” Azmy said. “It doesn’t matter if it goes adverse to the foreign policy interests of the United States — it’s still protected. The government doesn’t get to decide what you can talk about and what you cannot talk about based on whether or not it helps the U.S.”

Khalil’s legal team said the “foreign policy” provision giving the secretary of state the ability to request a deportation is rarely used, and when it has been evoked it is to deny visas for foreign officials who have interfered with democracy in their respective countries or officials with a poor human rights record. And the exception to the provision that prohibits deportations exists to ensure that it would not be used to specifically crack down on people’s speech, Azmy said. 

“Any kind of removal proceeding because the government disagrees with a political perspective would be unlawful,” Azmy said. “So Congress wrote that into the statute, mindful of what the Constitution requires.”

There is an obvious counterargument for government lawyers seeking to deport Khalil. They can turn to an exemption within the exemption that still gives the secretary of state leeway to further argue for deportation if the State Department can provide “a facially reasonable and bona fide determination” that the individual’s presence and activities in the U.S. “compromises” U.S. foreign policy interest, according to the provision and previous immigration case law. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil’s case “is not about free speech” but about “people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with.”

“I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions,” he said in Ireland on Wednesday, after a visit to Saudi Arabia for ceasefire talks with Ukrainian officials. “If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out.”

Rubio’s words rang hollow to a longtime New Jersey-based immigration attorney Robert Frank, one of the few attorneys to have represented a client in the U.S. who faced deportation under the same “foreign policy” provision evoked in Khalil’s case. During his 50 years of practice as an immigration attorney, Frank said a case decided in 1999 was the only time he had seen the government use the provision.

In the late 1990s, Frank represented former Mexican attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, who had fled Mexico and entered the U.S. on a temporary visa to avoid a slew of criminal charges, ranging from money laundering to embezzlement and torture. The U.S. government had ordered his deportation by using the “foreign policy” provision after Mexico requested his return, following several failed extradition attempts. Then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher argued that keeping him would strain the U.S. relationship with Mexico. The government eventually won the case, and in 1999 Massieu was ordered to be deported.

“You can see the clear foreign policy connection — the government of Mexico is asking the U.S. to get involved — whereas this present case [with Khalil], you don’t have that at all,” Frank told The Intercept. 

“What is the foreign policy effect of this fellow talking pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas — how does that affect the foreign policy of the United States?” Frank said, adding, “Israel may not be happy with saying things in favor of Hamas,” but that’s not grounds for deportation under the provision.

Frank challenged the provision in his client’s 1990s case, arguing that an immigration court judge should preside over whether his client would be deported or not, rather than the secretary of state alone. An immigration judge sided with Frank and halted the deportation. However, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is under the Department of Justice, overturned the decision upon government appeal. 

Related

If Trump Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil, Freedom of Speech Is Dead

While government attorneys have yet to argue their claim under the “foreign policy” provision in court, the White House has made unsubstantiated claims linking Khalil with Hamas, the Palestinian militant and political group that governs Gaza, which the U.S. includes on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that Khalil had “organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers with the logo of Hamas.”

“We have a zero tolerance policy for siding with terrorists,” she said.

Leavitt added that the Department of Homeland Security had provided her copies of the flyers, which the White House press office later privately shared with the conservative tabloid the New York Post. The flyers include the cover of a pamphlet published by Hamas, and widely shared online, titled “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” and another flyer showing a boot crushing the Star of David with the message “Crush Zionism.” Leavitt and the Post made the accusations without offering evidence that ties Khalil himself to the flyers. 

Azmy dismissed the claims and said government attorneys have not introduced the flyers as evidence in their case against Khalil and haven’t referred to them in court. Even if campus protesters had passed out those flyers, such actions would be protected under the First Amendment, he said.

“We don’t concede for a moment he did any of this,” Azmy added. “And even if the Trump administration is choosing to deport people for flyers, then we have much bigger problems on our hands — it’s a form of tacky authoritarianism.” 

During a press conference outside a Manhattan courthouse where a hearing took place Wednesday for Khalil’s case, hundreds of protesters had gathered. Thousands more marched across the country throughout the last several days, demanding Khalil’s release. 

Ramzi Kassem, one of Khalil’s attorneys and the founding director of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility at the City University of New York, said the “foreign policy” provision “is not intended to be used to silence pro-Palestinian speech, or any other speech, that the government happens to dislike.”

“This case is not going to set the precedent that the government wants it to set, whether its federal court or immigration court,” he said before a crowd of protesters. “And you already know that just by looking behind you that it’s not having the effect that the government wants it to have with people’s solidarity with Palestinians.”

The post How Mahmoud Khalil’s Attorneys Plan to Fight for his Release appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

It is a difficult time for the transgender community in Kentucky and those who support them. Less than two years ago, the state legislature, gripped with anti-trans hysteria, passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. And in recent weeks, an onslaught of executive orders from President Donald Trump further imperiled access to gender-affirming care nationwide.

But Oliver Hall, director of trans health at the Kentucky Health Justice Network, knew how to respond. When the state decimated care for vulnerable youth, they helped families connect with providers out of state. When Trump released his anti-trans orders, Hall pressed to make sure those providers held the line.

“One of the first things we needed to do was call the clinics in other states, making sure they weren’t going to start preemptively complying, and stop providing care,” said Hall. 

Immediate mobilization isn’t new to the staff at the Kentucky Health Justice Network. In addition to connecting LGBTQ+ people to services, it also serves as an abortion fund. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it triggered a near-total abortion ban in the state — changing the landscape for abortion access almost overnight.

“We prepared to just kind of shift on a dime to be able to do more of the travel support,” Hall said. 

As Hall and others in the reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights space know all too well, the assaults on transgender Americans are occurring against the backdrop of a wider war on bodily autonomy.

In 2025 alone, state legislatures have already passed 11 anti-trans bills, and roughly 614 bills are under consideration that could negatively impact trans and gender-nonconforming people. In 2024, 87 anti-trans bills were introduced in Congress, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. Despite many conservatives’ attempts to create distance from anti-abortion politics, many of the states that moved to restrict access to gender-affirming care have some of the strictest abortion bans. The same president who issued a slew of executive orders targeting transgender youth also appointed the Supreme Court nominees who made it possible to overturn Roe. And the court he reshaped is expected to make a ruling on gender-affirming care for transgender youth this spring.

For decades, abortion providers, advocates, and funds have persisted under an ever-shifting and intentionally vague legal landscape dead set on, if not outright, banning abortion care, making it as difficult as possible for abortion providers to effectively and ethically treat their patients. 

Now, providers who offer gender-affirming care find themselves in that same landscape, working tirelessly for their patients as the proverbial sand shifts constantly beneath their feet.

But if these fights are inextricably linked, so are the solutions. 

“In both the gender-affirming care space and abortion care space and again, broadly even immigrant health, we have to always be prepared for the ground to shift and change underneath us,” said Dr. Lakshmi Sundaresan, a family medicine physician in Michigan. “And I think that is the hardest thing.” 

Sundaresan, who like many provides both abortion and gender-affirming care services, said that one lesson from both practices is that you have to be “imaginative.”

“Flexibility is important,” she said. “We have to be more imaginative of what care can or may need to look like.”

Related

Drug-Sniffing Police Dogs Are Intercepting Abortion Pills in the Mail

In abortion care, providers have shifted, where possible, toward counseling patients through self-managed abortions at home and sending pills by mail to states, Sundaresan said. Evidence suggests this strategy has been broadly effective. In the year after Roe was overturned, the number of abortions went up, with experts attributing it to a rise in telemedicine and self-managed medication abortions. 

Thinking outside of the traditional approaches can help transgender patients, Sundaresan said. One way to do this is by looking for off-label uses of medications that might have gender-affirming side-effects, such as spironolactone, a blood pressure medication that also can block the production and action of testosterone. “The question would be, can we use a side effect or an alternative way that a medication works to help support folks in their gender journeys if there are restrictions placed on traditional hormone replacement therapy?” she said. 

The answers may also lie outside of the health care space. 

“Part of what imagination has to look like is how we can provide care – or people can manage their care — outside of interacting with the medical establishment,” she said.

Ongoing court battles over Trump’s anti-trans executive orders show how rapidly the legal landscape can and will change.

Before Trump returned to the White House, access to gender-affirming care varied widely by state, similar to abortion care since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. In recent years, more than two dozen states passed laws prohibiting care for trans minors, the most extreme of which criminalized prescribing puberty blockers as a felony. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing Tennessee’s law, in a case advocates hoped might set some guardrails at the state level. After oral arguments in December, many worry the conservative justices will uphold the law and give states wide latitude to restrict care.

In late January, Trump flexed federal power to target gender-affirming care for trans youth nationwide. He issued an executive order that threatened to withhold federal funding from hospitals, medical schools, and other institutions that offer gender-affirming care to anyone under 19 years old, even puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The president also directed the Justice Department to investigate doctors under the federal statute that criminalizes female genital mutilation, in coordination with state officials.

“It’s a coordinated, concerted effort to use trans people and trans youth in particular as political pawns,” said Alex Sheldon, executive director of GLMA, an association of medical providers that advocates for LGBTQ+ health equity, which joined a lawsuit challenging the executive order.

Many hospitals and clinics across the country quickly canceled appointments for young trans patients, who weren’t sure if they would ever be rescheduled.

This left “a patchwork landscape,” Sheldon said, “where your access to care not only depends on your geography but also institutional leadership and interpretation of the executive orders, rather than medical expertise.”

In early February, coalitions of doctors, patients, parents, advocacy groups, and Democratic attorneys general filed two federal lawsuits: one in Maryland, the other in Washington state. By mid-February, two different judges granted temporary restraining orders that blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order provisions.

Doctors and other health care workers around the country were relieved, both for themselves and their patients.

“I felt like I could finally breathe again,” wrote a Seattle physician, Physician Plaintiff 1, who is one of three doctors suing the Trump administration under pseudonyms for fear of being targeted under the executive order, in a court filing in the Washington case.

Many were in tears at a staff meeting held just a few hours after the federal judge in Washington first blocked Trump’s order, Physician Plaintiff 1 wrote. Providers rushed to deliver good news to patients and their families, as the court orders gave some hospitals enough reassurance to continue offering care. 

But the relief is temporary and subject to the uncertainties of litigation, including the Trump administration’s potential defiance of court orders. Both federal courts initially blocked the Trump administration’s plans until the end of February, then granted injunctions that will last until further developments in the case. 

Despite the injunctions, the Trump administration still attempted to pull funding from some hospitals, and the plaintiffs in the Washington case have asked the court to hold the Trump administration in contempt for defying orders. 

Related

Defending Bodily Autonomy Is Real Child Protection

Amid the uncertainty, some health systems haven’t been willing to risk restarting their gender-affirming care programs. Others have been slow to give providers and patients concrete guidance about the evolving situation.

“We have not had clear communication around resuming care,” said D, a provider in Pennsylvania who spoke with The Intercept on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. D said their institution’s leadership and legal teams were still reviewing the executive orders and the court rulings blocking them.

“We’re put into this new role as future-tellers and legal experts,” D said. “I’m not sure we’re going to have a lot of clarity for some time, and possibly not until we have more final resolution of the lawsuits.”

Now that Trump has shown his playbook of leveraging federal funding to block care, doctors are weighing how to insulate themselves and their patients from this form of pressure.

“I have been trying to figure out if there is a place I could practice medicine that doesn’t accept federal funding,” wrote Physician Plaintiff 3 in another court filing in the Washington case, “or whether I could set up my own medical practice so that I could continue providing care to both my cisgender and transgender patients on an equal basis.”

Navigating the shifting legal risks is a key part of the puzzle for both abortion and gender-affirming care providers. 

“These directives don’t carry legislative power, but it will take months to years to litigate them,” said Sundaresan.

The shifting landscape leaves providers at the whim of hospital and clinic executives. “It’s often hospital policy, not actual laws, that are dictating what kind of care we’re allowed to provide,” Sundaresan said. 

One way to combat preemptive compliance in both the abortion and gender-affirming care space is by providing consistent and persistent messaging on what the laws actually mean, argued Hall, the Kentucky trans health director.

Not unlike much of the confusion that swept through the country in the early days after the Dobbs decision, Hall said that confusion about the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth further hindered access to care. 

“We had providers in the state who thought they couldn’t refer their patients out of state, providers, which is not true. We had therapists who thought they couldn’t provide gender-affirming mental health care, which was also not true. We had pharmacists who thought that they couldn’t dispense hormone therapy that was prescribed by an out-of-state prescriber, which was also not true,” said Hall.

In this case, research and messaging played a critical role in making sure that not just the medical establishment but also “the public, and particularly those families, understand that they still have options they don’t have to just give up,” they said.

Building resiliency among providers and advocates is also crucial when facing an opposition not averse to acts of violence. 

Related

As Trump Fans the Flames of Anti-Abortion Rhetoric, Kansas Offers a Cautionary Tale

Throughout the decades, anti-abortion protesters have reigned terror upon providers, bombing clinics and murdering doctors. In 1984, for example, there were 29 cases of arson, firebombing, or bombings against abortion clinics. And in 1993, Dr. David Gunn was infamously fatally shot by an anti-abortion extremist.

Today, while those threats still persist against abortion providers; hospitals and clinics that provide gender-affirming care now find themselves under that same violent spotlight. In 2022, a Massachusetts woman called in a fake bomb threat to the Boston Children’s Hospital in retaliation for their transgender youth services. “There is a bomb on the way to the hospital; you better evacuate everybody, you sickos,” she said, according to court records.

Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor, Maine, which provides a range of health care services, including abortion and gender-affirming care, counsels both staff and volunteers about the risks before they ever put on a uniform. 

“There are inherent risks, unfortunately, in our culture with working at an abortion care provider, and now that also is associated with being a gender-affirming care provider,” said Aspen Ruhlin, the community engagement manager at the center. “We just make sure folks who are coming onto this staff are aware of what those risks are.” 

Even with training, facing backlash and threats for work in both abortion and gender-affirming care spaces isn’t easy. But Sundaresan in Michigan said that she has no plans to stop.

“I don’t have any special coping skills,” she said. “I’m a person that has to sit with uncertainty, just like our patients have to sit with uncertainty.” 

The post How to Keep Providing Gender-Affirming Care Despite Anti-Trans Attacks appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

A high-ranking kingpin and so-called “Narco Prince” was sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge on Friday in Washington, D.C. in one of the first drug war trials to conclude since the Trump administration declared certain Mexican cartels to be “terrorist” organizations.

Ruben Oseguera-Gonzalez is the U.S.-born son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, who founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and is Mexico’s most wanted man. While his father, alias “El Mencho,” is still at large, Oseguera, alias “El Menchito,” was convicted by a U.S. jury in September of conspiring to traffic cocaine and meth, and possessing weapons to further his drug trafficking operations.

Oseguera, 35, stood silently, with his left hand behind his back, as Judge Beryl A. Howell sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered him to forfeit more than $6 billion. Oseguera refused to address the court when given the opportunity to do so. During the trial, prosecutors accused El Menchito of not only working for the criminal group, but helping found it and co-leading it, alongside his father. In a sentencing document, prosecutors placed El Menchito at the same level as other cartel leaders, including Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the former high-profile leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“This defendant helped build Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación into a brutal terrorist organization that pumps poison onto our streets and commits horrific acts of violence,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement.

Since President Trump stepped into office, his administration has pushed for an even more aggressive approach to targeting drug smuggling organizations, as he also pressures the Mexican government to stem immigration and fentanyl trafficking by threatening tariffs. But the Trump administration’s actions, Oseguera’s sentencing, and major developments in judicial processes for over two-dozen high-profile traffickers will likely do little to reduce drug trafficking and drug war-related violence. Rather, it may further splinter criminal groups, leading to further violence in Mexico.

“The capture and imprisonment of alleged bosses of drug organizations only serves the purpose of propaganda for the militarized ‘drug war,’” said Oswaldo Zavala, a professor at the City University of New York. “They never interrupt the trafficking of drugs, and in many cases, it has the opposite effect: cheapening drug products and decreasing their quality, endangering the lives of consumers even more.”

In recent years, the CJNG has been a high-priority target for the U.S. government. As a relatively new organization, the group, armed with weapons sourced from the U.S., has rapidly grown to be one of Mexico’s largest criminal groups, controlling large, sporadic swathes of territory, mostly in western, central, and southern Mexico, and engaging in battles with rivals. The CJNG has grown to be “arguably the most prolific and most violent cartel in Mexico today,” D.C. prosecutors said in Oseguera’s sentencing memorandum.

The history of CJNG can be traced through Oseguera’s short life. Compared to his aging former collaborators, he is quite young. But he has spent nearly a third of his life in detention, first in Mexico and then in the U.S.

The CJNG organization was created after the 2006 launch of the U.S.-Mexican drug war. Its origins can be traced to the Milenio Cartel, which was once allied with the Sinaloa Cartel. After arrests and killings of top-level leaders, the group splintered, and a bloody war ensued in 2010. Eventually one faction, led by “El Mencho,” came out on top, with the group calling itself the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The organization took hold of old cocaine trafficking routes. According to court records, El Mencho and his son also controlled numerous meth labs in Mexico, importing precursor chemicals from China to manufacture the drug.

“They’re pioneers in synthetic drugs,” said Dr. Nathan P. Jones, an expert on Mexican organized crime and associate professor of security studies at Sam Houston State University. “And they were pioneers in fentanyl — if you know how to do one type of synthetic, you can do another type of synthetic. And we’ve all seen what fentanyl has done and the role it’s playing.”

The CJNG grew rapidly and attempted to elbow Sinaloa out of the way, leading to an eventual fissure between the two. The CJNG is known for its use of violence and propaganda efforts. In 2015, the organization made international news when it shot down a Mexican military helicopter, killing nine officials. And in 2016, as a show of force, CJNG members kidnapped two of El Chapo’s sons, then released them.

As a teenager, Oseguera began working with his father and other top Mexican organized crime leaders, prosecutors say. When he was arrested in 2015 in Mexico, the then-25-year-old threatened soldiers and cops with his rifle and grenade launcher that bore his moniker. “CJNG 02 JR,” his rifle read. While in Mexican prison, Oseguera continued to help run the organization, prosecutors alleged.

According to trial testimony and sentencing records, Oseguera was not just a typical “narco-junior” — the term used for the preppy children of Mexican drug lords who flaunt their wealth. Rather, he ran the organization alongside his father, using only the title of “Number 2” as a show of respect. Prosecutors highlighted his violent tactics, including a 2015 instance in which he allegedly slashed five men’s throats with a “half-moon-shaped knife.” Oseguera “is nothing less than a cold, calculated mass murderer,” the prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.

But his defense attorneys attempted to paint a different picture of Oseguera. While his attorneys tried to poke holes at cooperating witnesses’ testimony, they also signaled that Oseguera had no choice but to live a life of crime. He did not choose to be El Mencho’s son, rather, he is “both a product and a victim of that environment.”

After Friday’s hearing, one of Oseguera’s attorneys, Anthony Colombo, said they would appeal the sentencing, adding that the case should have been tried in Mexico, not the U.S.

Oseguera was extradited in 2020 to the U.S. But his sentencing, along with the arrest of other top Mexican cartel leaders recently sent to the U.S., is unlikely to slow drug trafficking, drug consumption, and drug war violence.

“These are highly decentralized organizations, so any one person being removed, it requires a sustained succession of kingpin strikes or high-value targeting to actually dismantle these groups,” said Jones. “But even when they’re dismantled, they break up, fragment into different cells, and then they form up under new banners. And that’s the consistent thing that we’ve seen.”

“When that happens, one of the unintended consequences is increased violence,” Jones added.

In the past year, there have been major developments in drug war arrests and prosecutions, starting under the Biden administration. This will likely continue under Trump’s presidency, considering his desire to escalate the drug war and a raging civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel.

Last summer, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the former, elusive leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, who arguably wielded more power than El Chapo, was arrested by U.S. officials. One of El Chapo’s sons kidnapped the aging drug lord, flew him across the border, and turned him over to U.S. authorities. His judicial processes are just beginning in New York, where prosecutors may request the death penalty for him.

In October, Genaro Garcia-Luna, a former high-ranking Mexican official and the “architect” of the drug war, was sentenced to nearly 40 years in prison after being convicted in 2023 of working with the Sinaloa Cartel. For years, Garcia-Luna served as one of the U.S. government’s closest drug war allies.

The Trump administration, pointing to the fentanyl overdose crisis in the U.S., is hellbent on increasing attacks on Mexican organized crime. Trump’s State Department placed several groups on the U.S.’s terrorist list, opening the door to further sanctions and possible military intervention. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently threatened military action on Mexican soil. And a Justice Department guidance document urged employees to work towards the “total elimination of cartels.” This has further placed a strain on Mexico, which views any potential military intervention as an attack on its sovereignty.

President Trump is pressuring the Mexican government to further combat organized crime groups. Trump threatened and imposed tariffs on Mexico, and then postponed some of them until April 2.

Last week, in an unprecedented move, the Mexican government handed over nearly 30 major criminal leaders from various organizations to the U.S. government, including from the Sinaloa, Zetas, Beltran-Leyva, Jalisco New Generation cartels, and others. Among them was the 72-year-old co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero, who is accused of having participated in the 1985 murder of DEA special agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The 29 men were not extradited, but instead were sent to the U.S. for “national security” reasons, Mexican and U.S. officials said. Because the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty is not at play, five of the men, including Caro Quintero, may face the federal death penalty.

On Friday morning, before Oseguera’s sentencing, the same federal judge held brief hearings for other CJNG leaders, including Oseguera’s brother-in-law, his uncle, and a cartel chemical broker. The latter two were part of the group of 29 men sent to the U.S. last week.

Don’t expect these steps to curb the flow of drugs into the U.S., Zavala argues, pointing to corruption among U.S. border agents, financial networks for criminal groups, and the lack of addiction treatment institutions in the U.S.

“The sentencing of “El Menchito” means very little in this failed ‘war,’” Zavala said. “We have seen this movie many times before and I’m afraid we will keep seeing it in the near future to no effect.”

The post “Narco Prince” Sentenced to Life as Trump Ramps up U.S.-Mexico Drug War appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.