Cristian Farias
@cristianfarias.com
Legal journalist and beachgoer. I write and talk about courts, the law, and the politics shaping them in a number of places. Working on a new thing. Signal: cristianfarias.33
In addition to having no experience in immigration, their website shows Ilya Shapiro (!) and disgraced former law prof Joshua Wright (!) as Senior Counsel. I don't think this massive contract was awarded to give immigrant children effective, zealous advocacy. burkegroup.law/our-team/
Our Team - BURKE LAW GROUP, PLLC
Our Team
burkegroup.law
Politico@politico.com · 19h ago26-employee Texas law firm gets $150M to represent 24,000 children in immigration court
New Evidence Suggests Dinosaurs Had Quinceañeras https://theonion.com/new-evidence-suggests-dinosaurs-had-quinceaneras/
As many avid swimmers know, and I only recently and embarrassingly found out, your Speedo™️ trunks, sooner than later, will disintegrate in hyperchlorinated water. I won’t be taking questions at this time.
Trump proposed to eliminate Head Start. Congress refused. Now Trump is going to gut Head Start through deregulation. Notice a pattern? www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...
Trump Administration Plans to Upend Head Start by Deregulating It (Gift Article)
The White House tried but failed to block funding for preschool for poor children. Instead, it will seek to strip away standards on health, literacy — and brushing teeth.
nytimes.com
I like this part where the U.S. Attorney's Office pretends that they didn't watch the news for an entire month and so "first became aware" that the reflecting pool was all fucked up on July 17—over a month after it started visibly falling apart.
Anyone written a piece on how Abdul El-Sayed, who looked different when he ran for governor in 2018, got swole? I’d read it. hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/ima...
Wild that not a single line of this piece notes that every day this crony spends as acting spy chief since the Senate confirmed a permanent replacement is against the law. thehill.com/policy/natio...
Pulte lingers as intel chief while senators say it’s time for ‘the temp’ to move on
Bill Pulte may be out of a job, but he hasn’t walked out the door. The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Jay Clayton to be the new director of national intelligence, replacing Pulte in a role Presi…
thehill.com
I may be old and frail, but I still have youthful snatch form.
Witching hour is real. It’s a curse. There’s no escaping it. The shrieks. The stomping. The slamming of doors. The devilish laughter. The spirit of restlessness and chaos that sweeps over the home. Resistance is futile. This kind does not come out except by much prayer and fasting.
This may be the first case to apply the Harvard anti-affirmative action ruling and Louisiana v. Callais to invalidate and permanently enjoin a pair of race-conscious minority contracting programs in Houston. Case brought by white contractors represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation.
Reuters Legal@legal.reuters.com · last wk.A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the city of Houston, Texas, from enforcing race-conscious policies governing a program that sets aside certain public contracts for minority-owned businesses after finding they were unconstitutional.
Today I learned that I'm only a year younger than Ross Douthat.
1st Cir. rejects Trump admin's attempt to block a ruling against Trump's elections EO, which purported to put USPS in charge of deciding whether mail ballots would be delivered. EO remains enjoined for plaintiff states +DC. www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/fi... www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/fi...
The subpoenas to The New York Times are withdrawn in real time, in open court, during a very embarrassing hearing for the Trump administration. Incredible work.
Inner City Press@innercitypress.bsky.social · 2w agoJudge: Mr. O'Neil take it away. David O'Neil of Debevoise: I have a lot to say but I'll be brief. It is important that the public know that the Government is unilaterally withdrawing these subpoenas. After this bad faith, I do not expect new subpoenas
The NYT subpoena hearing is a shit show, but the best part is they tried to hide the guy who fucked up in the gallery. It is still ongoing. Judge Subramanian has asked why he shouldn't invite a show cause for contempt.
A flak to me, just now: “Keep up the thirst traps.” How rude.
The 10-year-old has informed me that I shall henceforth make his cheese sandwich with with butter, not mayo. “I’m proud of you,” his immigrant father replied.
In a footnote in a labor case, a senior Republican-appointed judge on the D.C. Circuit blasts the Supreme Court about an embarrassing error in its landmark ruling overturning the Chevron case, which unsettled four decades of administrative law precedent. media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/doc...
![Text of footnote:
There is an error in the Supreme Court's analysis in Loper Bright. Much of the Court's reasoning (and a part of Justice Gorsuch's concurrence) is devoted to criticizing the Chevron opinion for ignoring section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706. See, e.g., 603 U.S. at 397-400, 411-12; id. at 428 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). The Court's critique is unfounded. It is unfounded because section 706 of the APA did not apply to judicial review of the EPA rule at issue in Chevron. Section 706 did not apply because Chevron was not an APA review case. The Clean Air Act superseded the APA: "The provisions of section 553 through 557 and section 706 of Title 5 [the APA] shall not, except as expressly provided in this subsection, apply to actions to which this subsection applies." 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(1). The problem the Court identified in Loper Bright was not with Chevron itself, but with courts, including the Supreme Court, indiscriminately adopting the Chevron formula in later cases in which section 706 of the APA did apply.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jech7rem6vijss4euf4fijao/bafkreifkanop6tkhddyco4lfu2wvvo4mmb6zu7r5sqrtcuealgmlaleqdy)
The cherry on top of this opinion is that the Fifth Circuit sided with Exxon after a huge fire at one of its facilities, where one of its workers was basically a hero in helping firefighters contain the blaze, was left with a “textbook case of PTSD.”
Raffi Melkonian@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 2w agoOSHA lacks authority to regulate mental illness, under statutory authority to regulate workplace "illness," says CA5. www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
This is one of the first big tests of our post-Trump v. Slaughter world—where an inferior officer appointed according to the Constitution’s design challenges a president throwing a tantrum over judges doing a job Congress has duly assigned to them.
Kyle Cheney@kyledcheney.bsky.social · 2w agoJUST IN: Roger Rogoff, who was appointed interim US attorney by judges in Washington state and immediately fired by President Trump, is suing to block his removal. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
This is a setback, but as the court notes in footnote 8, the real action will be in the First Circuit, where Mohsen Mahdawi has a pending petition challenging the Trump administration's termination of his lawful permanent resident status. The case is Mahdawi v. Blanche, 26-1648. See:
assets.aclu.org
Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2w agoA real one-two punch from the 2nd Circuit in Moshen Mahdawi's case. The panel (all GOP appointees) held that the courts lack jurisdiction over the constitutional claim and it would have to be appealed after the immigration "court" (ie, DOJ) admin process. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
NYC’s small business owners have said it over and over: endless paperwork and uncertainty has made getting their stores up and running too difficult. So we’re cutting red tape, eliminating redundant permits (did you know you need a permit just to serve some ice cream?), and speeding up inspections.
Concurrently with this case: The same panel dismissed the appeal by Rümeysa Öztürk, who reached a settlement with the government to end her removal proceedings, restore her student visa as if it had never been revoked, and allow her to return to Turkey after finishing her studies, which she did.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2w agoVery bad draw for Mr. Mahdawi at the 2nd Circuit. Decision by Judge Livingston (Bush) and joined by Nardini (Trump) and Menashi (Trump) finds no jurisdiction. Except this to be taken en banc, especially as a motions panel of the 2nd Circuit previously ruled that the court DID have jurisdiction.
Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*
I truly feel for Democratic appointees to lower federal courts who are former public defenders. On the one hand, they’re bound to apply unintelligible precedent that turns them into pretend historians. On the other, they know that gun laws unevenly criminalize Black and brown people. A bad place.
Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social · 3w agoAs expected, the 3rd Circuit has struck down New Jersey's assault weapons ban, becoming the first federal appeals court to find that the Second Amendment protects AR-15s. But SCOTUS will settle this issue next term, making the decision anticlimactic. www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/242...
New (old) secret court just dropped. And further proof that the nation and Congress truly did go bonkers on immigration in the 1990s. Here’s the slapdash website for it: www.atrc.uscourts.gov
Seamus Hughes@seamushughes.bsky.social · 3w agoBroke some news tonight that the 30 year old federal court, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, got its first case ever and created a hastily made website. www.courtwatch.news/p/alien-terr...
