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New Orleans sheriff indicted after investigation into escape of 10 inmates
A Louisiana sheriff was indicted Wednesday over her office’s role in a notorious jailbreak that sparked outrage last year. The brazen escape saw 10 inmates flee from a New Orleans jail, prompting a massive manhunt involving hundreds of officers from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson faces a 30-count grand jury indictment, charging her with malfeasance, obstruction of justice and falsifying public records. Although Hutson is not accused of helping the inmates break out of jail — through a hole behind a toilet — a state investigation found her poor management of the jail led to their escape. All of the inmates were eventually recaptured after a monthslong search.
“While Sheriff Hutson did not personally open the doors of the jail for the escapees, her refusal to comply with basic legal requirements and to take even minimal precautions in the discharge of her duties directly contributed to and enabled the escape,” Murrill said in a statement.
Huston’s office did not immediately respond to phone calls, text messages and emails seeking comment. Court records did not list a personal attorney for Huston, who lost her reelection campaign and is set to leave office on Monday.
The sheriff told CBS News in an exclusive interview last August that understaffing and “major design flaws” at the jail played a significant part in the inmates’ escape. At the time, she said those flaws at the Orleans Parish Justice Center “make it unsafe for those who are housed here and make it unsafe for those who work here.”
In a farewell address Tuesday, Hutson said her office faced numerous challenges and said the jailbreak “tested us to the limit.” She added her office “responded with professionalism, urgency and resilience, and we came out stronger because of it.”
Court records show bond for Hutson was set at $300,000 and that she was ordered to turn in her passport and not leave the state. Bianka Brown, the chief financial officer of the sheriff’s office, was also indicted on 20 similar charges. She did not immediately respond to phone calls and text messages sent to numbers associated with her.
Both Hutson and Brown turned themselves into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center and have been released on bond, CBS affiliate WWL reported.
The escapees left behind graffiti that read “To Easy LoL” after crawling through a hole behind a jail toilet and scaling a barbed wire fence. The jail did not realize the inmates were missing for more than seven hours.
State officials and some city leaders accused Hutson of poor management and criticized her for not alerting police and other authorities in a timely manner. Hutson initially blamed political opponents for being behind the jailbreak without providing any evidence to support her claim. She also said faulty door locks enabled the escape and added she had been seeking funding to improve the jail’s ailing infrastructure.
The Orleans Parish jail system had been plagued by violence, corruption and dysfunction for decades and was placed under federal oversight in 2013. But problems persisted despite tens of millions of dollars in investment and the opening of a new jail facility in 2015.
Federally appointed monitors warned of the jail’s inadequate staffing, lax supervision and a skyrocketing number of “internal escapes” in the two years leading up to the jailbreak.
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House Adopts Budget to Unlock $70 Billion for Immigration Enforcement
The House on Wednesday narrowly adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would allow the G.O.P. to blow past Democratic opposition and pour an additional $70 billion into immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Trump’s second term.
The measure is a crucial step in Republicans’ plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, ending a shutdown that has lasted for nearly 11 weeks.
Republicans pushed through the plan, which the Senate adopted last week, on a party-line vote of 215 to 211, with one independent lawmaker voting “present.” That set the stage for the G.O.P. to begin working on a special budget measure, shielded from a filibuster in the Senate, to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies charged with carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“This is the moment we take the keys, and we say, no more of this nonsense,” said Representative Jodey C. Arrington, Republican of Texas and chairman of the Budget Committee. “And we open up the people’s government and we restore the safety and security of the American people.”
The budget plan — which stalled in the House for more than five hours as Republicans fought among themselves over measures on agriculture and ethanol that had nothing to do with immigration — was part of the two-track strategy that Republicans agreed to earlier this month to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding lapsed on Feb. 14.
Democrats had refused to fund the department without new restrictions on federal immigration agents’ conduct, and Republicans had refused to agree to any. Then last month, Senate Republicans struck a deal with Democrats to allow the spending measure for the Department of Homeland Security to pass with no funding for or restrictions on immigration enforcement. The G.O.P. would then seek to fund ICE and C.B.P. through a process known as reconciliation, which exempts certain budget bills from a filibuster and allows them to pass the Senate on a simple-majority vote.
Approval of the budget plan was a crucial first step for Republicans to begin the reconciliation process, which will deprive Democrats of the ability to block the bill funding ICE and C.B.P. President Trump has directed Congress to pass that measure by June 1.
The spending bill to fund the rest of the department, which has passed the Senate twice without objection, has remained stalled in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to bring it to the floor, even as the White House has urged swift passage.
Several rank-and-file House Republicans said they would not vote for the spending bill without seeing progress on the bill funding immigration enforcement. It was not clear whether adoption of the budget blueprint would be enough to sway them.
The budget resolution would allow the two Senate committees that oversee immigration enforcement agencies to write legislation that increases government spending by up to $70 billion each. Republican leaders have said that they expect the total spending amount to be closer to $70 billion in total.
Democrats attacked Republicans for giving more money to immigration agencies that already received a large fund as part of Mr. Trump’s signature domestic policy bill. They argued that such money would be better utilized to address Americans’ concerns over affordability and health care.
“Republicans refuse to address the rising costs that Americans are dealing with because this administration refuses to put the people first,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington. “Americans of every political stripe do not want more money to go to ICE’s slush fund.”
Some rank-and-file Republicans had been concerned about such attacks, and they sought to expand the scope of the budget bill to include priorities that they argued would be felt more directly by most Americans.
But the White House and congressional Republican leaders rebuffed those efforts, worried that adding other priorities to the bill would slow its passage and could prolong a record shutdown.
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
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Supreme Court appears to lean toward ending TPS for some migrants
The U.S. Supreme Court
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The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration’s decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency’s decision-making either. Pressed by the court’s three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
“None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That’s your position?” asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“Correct,” responded Sauer.
“What you’re basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose,” Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn’t do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: “Wasn’t that baseball game last night great!”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: “Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a ‘filthy, dirty, and disgusting s-hole country.’ I’m quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don’t see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision.”
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, “So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren’t allowed to look at all the context.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration’s position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration’s review as “a sham.”
“The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president’s racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular,” Pipoly said. “The secretary herself described people from Haiti” and from other non-white countries as “killers, leeches, saying, ‘We don’t want them, not one,’” while “simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans.”
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, “Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?”
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
“How about southern Italians?” Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: “Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time.”
At the end of Wednesday’s court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court’s 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
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Springfield’s Haitian Workers and Businesses Face Uncertain Future
When Stanley Charles, a Haitian immigrant, arrived in Springfield, Ohio, in 2021, “it was like a desert,” he recently recalled.
The industrial city had been losing population for decades, and some streets were lined with boarded-up, dilapidated homes.
To revive the city, Springfield’s leaders lured auto parts manufacturers, warehouses and other businesses to the area. But once the companies began operating, they struggled to find workers.
Then a wave of Haitian immigrants arrived, helping fill the labor shortage.
Now, many of those Haitians are facing a very uncertain future. The Trump administration wants to end Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program that has allowed about 350,000 Haitians, including thousands in Springfield, to live and work in the United States for years because of instability in their home country.
The program’s fate rests with the Supreme Court, which is hearing oral arguments on Wednesday to determine whether the administration has the legal authority to terminate it. A decision is expected by July. If the court rules in the administration’s favor, Haitians would lose their work permits and become subject to deportation.
Springfield, about an hour’s drive west of the Ohio capital, Columbus, could be reshaped by the Supreme Court’s decision.
A few years ago, word spread among Haitians that jobs were plentiful in Springfield. Thousands, some newly arrived to the United States after crossing the border, others relocating from states like Florida and New York, settled there.
“We Haitian people came, we began to work, pay taxes,” Mr. Charles said. “We helped this city develop.”
Between 10,000 and 15,000 Haitians live in the city of 58,000, according to county estimates.
The influx of newcomers initially caused friction. A local health clinic had to hire additional staff; schools had to accommodate new students; and some city services were strained.
Then during the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump and his Ohio-born running mate, JD Vance, repeated a baseless claim — that Haitians in Springfield were eating their neighbors’ pets.
White supremacists descended on the city, bomb threats were made against schools and some Haitians moved to other cities. But many remained and carried on with their lives, said Heidi Earlywine, who mentors Haitian families and teaches them English at Central Christian Church.
Now, though, the Trump administration’s push to end T.P.S. has left many Haitians anxious and injected uncertainty into the local economy.
A Haitian exodus could derail Springfield’s momentum just as it rolls out “Springfield 2051,” a road map for the city ahead of its 250th anniversary.
While most employers have not spoken publicly, local and state officials have voiced concern about losing Haitian workers.
“We would have manufacturers and businesses that don’t have employees,” said Charlie Patterson, a commissioner in Clark County, which includes Springfield.
“They will be looking for workers for jobs they couldn’t fill before,” he said in an interview.
The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican who has championed the contribution of Haitians, has warned that ending T.P.S. would be a “mistake.”
In early February, a federal judge in Washington paused the government’s termination of T.P.S. for Haiti, finding that the administration’s move had been “arbitrary and capricious” and had failed to consider the perilous conditions in Haiti. On March 6, a three-judge appellate panel affirmed that decision. Five days later, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Mr. Charles, 45, who worked at a telecommunications company in Port-au-Prince, fled Haiti after being threatened and imprisoned for his political opposition activities, he said.
After entering the United States in 2021 on a tourist visa, he qualified for T.P.S. under the Biden administration. He also applied for asylum, which, if granted, would allow him to remain in the country even if T.P.S. is revoked.
For now, he operates robots at a manufacturing plant and sends money to his wife and other family members in Haiti.
“They all depend on me,” he said. “We are here because our country is not functioning.”
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