Idaho police could arrest immigrants without legal status in proposed law to mirror Texas

BOISE, Idaho — Immigrants living in Idaho without legal status could be arrested and charged by local law enforcement, according to a new proposed bill, giving local officials authority in an area that has historically been left to federal officials.

Introduced Tuesday by Rep. Jaron Crane, R- Nampa, the bill would make it a misdemeanor offense to enter or reenter the U.S. illegally. A second offense would be a felony, and the bill gives magistrate judges the power to require defendants to leave the country — equivalent to deportation.

The Idaho bill is modeled after a Texas law, passed last year, that gives local law enforcement authority to enforce illegal entry into the U.S. The law, which a number of other states have sought to replicate, represents a sea change in immigration enforcement by giving states authority to enforce federal immigration law.

The proposal is largely the same as one that Crane brought before Idaho lawmakers last year in the final days of the 2024 legislative session. That bill overwhelmingly passed in the House, but did not make it through the Senate.

Crane said at a committee hearing Tuesday that he contacted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton about the bill, and asked him whether he suggested any changes, given the Texas law’s legal challenges. The Texas law has been temporarily blocked as it works its way through the courts.

Paxton recommended adding a severability clause, Crane said, which allows portions of the law to remain in place if others are stricken by a judge.

“ ‘Other than that, it’s fantastic legislation,’ ” Crane said Paxton told him. “It being tied up in the courts is a political thing. Its enforceable, its constitutional, and it’s going to be upheld.”

The Idaho bill, like the Texas law, is likely to face legal challenges, as critics pose that it encroaches on federal authority for local governments to enforce immigration laws.

—Idaho Statesman

Supreme Court to hear arguments on porn age verification law

WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday over a Texas law that requires pornography websites to verify the ages of their visitors, a case over salacious content that might influence the power of Congress and states to regulate minors’ access to the internet.

In Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton, a group of challengers are set to urge the justices to overturn the Texas law as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech rights of adults in Texas.

They argue in court filings that Texas’ effort to prevent minors from accessing sexual content online chills the rights of adults to access the online content they want, and requiring verification information exposes those adult visitors to potential identity theft, fraud and other risks.

The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2023, requires that pornography websites verify the identity of their users through use of documentation like a government-issued ID, and imposes a $10,000 fine per violation or $250,000 fine if that involves a minor.

The law is currently in place in the state because of a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and major pornographic websites such as Pornhub have announced they would no longer provide access in the state.

—CQ-Roll Call

Michelle Obama will not attend Trump inauguration

Michelle Obama’s office released a statement Tuesday, saying that the former first lady will not accompany her husband to Donald Trump’s inauguration next Monday. It will be the second time in two weeks that she has missed a gathering of U.S. leaders and their spouses, after she also didn’t attend the Jan. 9 funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.

As with Carter’s funeral, where Michelle Obama likely would have been seated next to Trump, her office didn’t give a reason for her non-attendance at his swearing-in ceremony. Whether she again has a “scheduling” conflict, as with Carter’s funeral, she made it pretty clear five months earlier that she didn’t think much of Trump as a president or as a human being.

During her widely praised speech at the Democratic National Convention in July, Michelle Obama argued that women’s lives would be at risk if Trump were elected to a second term and offered one of her party’s “most emphatic takedowns” of the 45th president, mostly without naming him, as The New York Times reported.

In praising Vice President Kamala Harris’ “dignity,” qualifications and accomplishments, she mocked Trump’s background of privilege, his career of business failures and the “luxury” he’s enjoyed of “whining or cheating others to get further ahead.”

Michelle Obama, who previously campaigned against Trump in 2016 and 2020, also turned his more controversial comment about “black jobs” against him, as she called him out for promoting birtherism, racism and “lies.”

Before and during Barack Obama’s presidency, he and his wife became the target of unfounded claims by Trump, his wife Melania Trump and other Republicans that his birth certificate was a forgery, NPR reported. Michelle Obama said that the California-born former San Francisco prosecutor, who identifies as Black and Asian American, should expect the same kind of attacks. Indeed, Trump made false claims about Harris’ racial identity after she became the Democratic nominee, saying that “all of a sudden ... she became a Black person.”

The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama released a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday, saying that Barack Obama would attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies but not his wife. Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also will join their husbands, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively, for Trump’s swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

—The Mercury News

Over 1 million Haitians forced to flee by gangs face ghastly conditions in camps, UN says

The number of Haitians who have been forced to flee their homes by gang violence tripled over the past year, bringing the number to more than 1 million, the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, said Tuesday.

The latest data reveals that 1,041,000 people, many of whom have been displaced several times, are struggling amid an intensifying humanitarian crisis and widening gang violence, the U.N. agency said in a release.

“Children bear the greatest burden of displacement, making up over half of the displaced population,” the U.N. migration agency said.

The figure represents the highest recorded number of displacements due to violence in Haiti, which last year led to the deaths of more than 5,600 Haitians, the U.N. said. The migration office the rising number of homeless people underscores the urgent needs for assistance, and represent a threefold increase in displacements within a year, rising from 315,000 in December 2023.

In Port-au-Prince alone, where the largest number of homeless are located, displacements have nearly doubled, fueled by the relentless gang violence, the collapse of healthcare services and worsening hunger.

In the Artibonite region to the north of the capital, displacement tripled in 2024, reaching over 84,000 people, highlighting the spread of violence beyond Port-au-Prince.

“Haiti needs sustained humanitarian assistance right now to save and protect lives,” said migration office Director General Amy Pope. “We must work together to address the root causes of the violence and instability that has led to so much death and destruction.”

The disturbing new figures are inching close to the same number of people — 1.5 million — who were internally displaced by Haiti’s cataclysmic earthquake, which struck 15 years ago on Jan. 12, 2010.

—Miami Herald

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