WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

1/ Migrant children at an overcrowded detention facility in Arizona reported being sexually assaulted and retaliated against by agents for protesting, according to dozens of first-hand accounts collected by government case managers. An officer put his hands inside the bra of a 15-year-old from Honduras, pulled down her underwear and groped her as part of a "routine" pat down in front of other immigrants and officers. Guards removed sleeping mats from the cells of children who complained about the taste of the water and food. The reports also describes unsanitary and overcrowded conditions similar to detention facilities in Texas. (NBC News)

2/ Immigration and Customs Enforcement started using three new for-profit immigration detention centers, despite instructions from Congress to reduce the number of people in detention. The agency is now detaining migrants at a Mississippi prison operated by CoreCivic, a jail run by LaSalle Corrections, and the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, run by GEO Group in Basile. A spokesman for ICE confirmed that all three facilities started housing immigrant detainees at the end of last month. (Mother Jones)

3/ A federal appeals court dismissed an emoluments lawsuit against Trump. The judges rejected the premise of the case that the Trump International Hotel – blocks from the White House – had violated the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the Constitution by accepting money from state and foreign governments at Trump's hotel in downtown Washington. While Trump stepped back from day-to-day management of the businesses, he still maintains ownership. "Even if government officials were patronizing the hotel to curry the president's favor," the court said, "there is no reason to conclude that they would cease doing so were the president enjoined from receiving income from the hotel. After all, the hotel would still be publicly associated with the president, would still bear his name, and would still financially benefit members of his family." All three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents. (NPR / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / CNBC)

• ???? Day 887: A federal judge ruled that the Democrats' emoluments lawsuit against Trump can proceed. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said discovery could begin Friday, and Democrats are expected seek financial information, interviews and other records from Trump and the Trump Organization. The Trump administration can still try to delay or block Democrats from issuing subpoenas by appealing directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to intervene. (Washington Post)

• ????