Law & Crime – Page 84 – The Tarbabys Blog

What new Florida immigration law means for employers, hospitals and workforce

Pensacola News Journal

What new Florida immigration law means for employers, hospitals and workforce

Brandon Girod, Pensacola News Journal – May 10, 2023

Standing at a podium with a sign reading “Biden’s Border Crisis,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new state immigration law Wednesday that critics say is cruel as it imposes tough penalties and new restrictions on people living in the state illegally.

The measure, approved last week by the Florida Legislature, has been condemned by critics as cruel and potentially leading to law enforcement profiling. It’s considered among the toughest steps taken by any state to deter immigrants without legal permission.

“We have to stop this nonsense, this is not good for our country,” DeSantis said, adding “this is no way to run a government.”

But immigrant advocates said Florida’s approach targets a community already struggling to survive with new criminal penalties and restrictions. Immigrants living in Florida, legally and illegally, represent a huge share of the state’s workforce, leaders added.

Susan Pai, a Florida immigration lawyer based in Jacksonville, broke the new law down, highlighting some of the bill’s biggest impacts.

Strengthening employment requirements

Several sections of the bill outline strengthened employment requirements, including:

Employers are required to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility within three business days after the first day the new employee begins working for pay.
Private employers with 25 or more employees must use the federal E-Verify system to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility starting on July 1.
Public agencies are also required to use the E-Verify system to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility.
Employers cannot continue to employ an unauthorized alien after obtaining knowledge that a person is or has entered the county illegally.
It is unlawful for any person to knowingly employ, hire, recruit or refer, either for herself or himself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state, a “foreign national” who is not authorized to work in the U.S.
An unauthorized immigrant can not obtain a license to practice law in Florida after Oct. 31, 2028, repealing a 2014 law that allowed immigrants living in the country illegally to practice law in the state.

Violating the new law could result in a series of escalating penalties that could lead to the state suspending or revoking all licenses to operate their business.

The Farmworkers Association of Florida, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for social and environmental justice with farmworkers, estimates that there are about 300,000 farm workers in Florida who live in the state illegally, making up about 60% of the state’s farm workers.

Losing those jobs could have a significant impact on Florida’s agriculture industry, and Pai says she imagines it’s a similar situation among roofers, landscapers and others.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people asking me if they should leave the state,” she said. “The undocumented community is very scared to even show up for work.”

Pai also stressed that Section 12 makes it a crime to even refer someone for employment within the state, and underlined that the law applies to people who lawfully entered the country on visitor and student visas but are not authorized to work.

‘What are we going to do?’ Two migrants share fears for the future in Florida crackdown

Hospitals must ask patients about their legal status

Section 5 states that any hospital that accepts Medicaid must include a provision on its patient admission or registration forms for the patient or the patient’s representative to indicate whether the patient is a United States citizen, lawfully present in the United States, or not lawfully present in the United States.

Hospitals would then need to turn the cumulative data over to the governor and the Florida Legislature quarterly and annually, and they would then have to quantify how much it costs to provide medical assistance to people not living in the country legally. The identity of patients would not be included in this data.

Pai says this law conflicts with health care professionals’ oaths to patients because it dissuades people in need of health care from seeking it out if they are in the country illegally.

“It’s going to prevent people from either bringing theirselves in for medical care or even their children,” Pai said. “They’re not going to know that they don’t have to answer the question. Once they’re asked the question, they believe they have to give up their undocumented status.”

People foregoing preventative health care to hide their status could end up costing Florida more money down the road when untreated medical issues become an emergency.

“Ultimately, their condition may worsen and the cost to Florida may actually be more than if they were just given the care in the first place.”

Out-of-state driver’s license issued to ‘unauthorized immigrants’ no longer valid

Driver’s licenses and permits issued by other states exclusively to people living in the country illegally will no longer be recognized in Florida.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says there are 19 states and the District of Columbia that issue these licenses to people living in the country illegally, and Pai says this bill could “open the flood gates” of racial profiling and increase the danger for drivers across the state.

Illegal immigration in Florida: A by-the-numbers look at a surge

“If you have an undocumented alien who can get a valid license, they can drive legally, they can buy insurance. They’re not going to flee the scene of an accident because they have a valid license. It just makes things more dangerous for everybody,” said Pai.

The law also bars counties and municipalities from providing funds to people, entities or organizations to issue identification documents to individuals who don’t provide proof of lawful presence in the county.

Transporting a person living in the country illegally across state lines is a third-degree felony

The law now makes it a third-degree felony for anyone who knowingly or who reasonably should know that they are transporting immigrants who entered the country illegally into Florida. Transporting a minor is a second-degree felony.

A previous iteration of the bill included transportation within the state, but was cut after critics pointed out that the bill could make transporting a family member who entered the country illegally to the hospital, their job or to school a felony.

Juvenile DNA database

Section 18 would force arrested adults and even juveniles with an immigration detainer (an “immigration hold”) to provide their DNA to the state.

DeSantis’ presidential bid: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis poised to make presidential bid, Florida could be his blueprint

SB 1718 expands FDLE’s mission to include immigration matters

The most sweeping sections of the bill outlines the expansion of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s mission to include immigration matters.

Section 13 states “FDLE, with respect to counter-terrorism efforts, responses to acts of terrorism within or affecting this state, coordinating with and providing assistance to the Federal Government in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, responses to immigration enforcement incidents within or affecting this state, and other matters related to the domestic security of Florida as it relates to terrorism and immigration.”

Sections 14 through 17 expand several Florida anti-terrorism laws to include immigration law enforcement, which Pai says is a “very smart way” to skate around having to create state-specific immigration crimes that are not also federal crimes.

Pai says this “huge” expansion of power is ultimately going to “dilute” anti-terrorism resources in the state.

“There’s no appropriation that goes along with this huge expansion of power to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies and organizations in the state of Florida who are charged with anti-terrorism and now immigration enforcement incidents within or effecting the state,” she said.

Appropriates $12M from Florida’s General Revenue Fund to migrant transportation program

Section 21 appropriates $12 million from the General Revenue Fund, which is funded by taxpayer dollars, to be used for DeSantis’ “unauthorized alien transport program.” The same program that made headlines when DeSantis flew about 50 Venezuelan migrants in two charter planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The Division of Emergency Management selected three companies to execute Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial migrant relocation program.

A “notice of intent award” issued on Monday named ARS Global Emergency Management, GardaWorld Federal Services and Vertol Systems Company, Inc., which was the company that carried out last year’s migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard.

The division had posted a request for proposals at the end of of March, after getting control of the program and $10 million to carry it out through special session legislation. During the regular session, which concluded last week, lawmakers approved $12 million more for the program.

But the taxpayer cost will be more than that, as the program has already generated multiple legal challenges. Florida has paid two law firms more than $640,000 in legal fees for DeSantis’ relocation of nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from San Antonia, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard.

The companies selected, according to the request for proposals, must “provide ground and air transportation and other related services… to assist in the voluntary relocation of Inspected Unauthorized Aliens that have agreed to be relocated from Florida, or another state, to a location within the United States.”

The related services include research and planning, ensuring those relocated have provided voluntary consent, and arranging social support at the destination.

How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?

BBC News

How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?

May 9, 2023

Gun sale in Virginia — Data shows gun ownership in the US has grown over the last several years

Gun violence is a fixture in American life – but the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against people who are fiercely protective of their right to bear arms.

We’ve looked into some of the numbers behind firearms in the US.

Mass shootings on the rise

There have been more than 200 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. Their figures include shootings that happen in homes and in public places.

There have been two in Texas in the last week – five killed at a home in Cleveland, north of Houston, and eight dead at a shopping mall in Allen, near Dallas.

In each of the last three years, there have been more than 600 mass shootings, almost two a day on average.

He counts US shootings. He no longer remembers names

The deadliest such attack, in Las Vegas in 2017, killed more than 50 people and left 500 wounded. The vast majority of mass shootings, however, leave fewer than 10 people dead.

Graphic showing year by year mass shootings

How do US gun deaths break down?

48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That’s nearly an 8% increase from 2020, which was a record-breaking year for firearm deaths.

While mass shootings and gun murders (homicides) generally garner much media attention, more than half of the total in 2021 were suicides.

Chart showing a breakdown of gun-related deaths in the US

That year, more than 20,000 of the deaths were homicides, according to the CDC.

Data shows more than 50 people are killed each day by a firearm in the US.

That’s a significantly larger proportion of homicides than is the case in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, and many other countries.

Graphic showing an international comparison of gun-related killings as a percentage of all homicides in each country. The US leads with nearly 79% of all homicides occurring with guns.

How many guns are there in the US?

While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, the latest figures from the Small Arms Survey – a Swiss-based research project – estimated that there were 390 million guns in circulation in the US in 2018.

The US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far surpasses that of other countries around the world.

Chart showing civilian gun ownership around the world

More recent data out of the US suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last few years. A study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.

This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.

Who supports gun control?

A majority of Americans are in favour of gun control.

57% of Americans surveyed said they wanted stricter gun laws – although this fell last year – according to polling by Gallup.

32% said the laws should remain the same, while 10% of people surveyed said they should be “made less strict”.

The issue is extremely divisive, falling largely along party lines.

“Democrats are nearly unanimous in their support for stricter gun laws,” another Gallup study noted, with nearly 91% in favour of stricter gun laws.

Only 24% Republicans, on the other hand, agreed with the same statement, along with 45% of Independent voters.

Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate ownership of assault weapons. Laws vary by state but California, for example, has banned ownership of assault weapons with limited exceptions.

Map showing states with assault weapon bans - California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York & Washington DC, and those with restrictions Minnesota, Virginia and Washington, March 2023 — Map showing states with assault weapon bans – California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York & Washington DC, and those with restrictions Minnesota, Virginia and Washington, March 2023

Some controls are widely supported by people across the political divide – such as restrictions governing the sale of guns to people who are mentally ill or on “watch” lists.

Who opposes gun control?

Despite years of financial woes and internal strife, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy.

Over the last several election cycles, it, and other organisations, have consistently spent more on pro-gun rights messaging than their rivals in the gun control lobby.

A line chart showing the amount spent per year by gun rights groups and gun control groups on federal lobbying in the US from 2008 to 2022. Gun rights groups have consistently spent more than double what gun control groups have. Gun rights spending peaked in 2013 at just under $20m - gun control groups spent just under $3m in the same year. In 2022, gun rights groups spent $13m, while their opponents spent $2.3m. — A line chart showing the amount spent per year by gun rights groups and gun control groups on federal lobbying in the US from 2008 to 2022. Gun rights groups have consistently spent more than double what gun control groups have. Gun rights spending peaked in 2013 at just under $20m – gun control groups spent just under $3m in the same year. In 2022, gun rights groups spent $13m, while their opponents spent $2.3m.

A number of states have also gone as far as to largely eliminate restrictions on who can carry a gun. In June 2021, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a “permitless carry bill” that allows the state’s residents to carry handguns without a licence or training.

Similarly, in April last year Georgia became the 25th in the nation to eliminate the need for a permit to conceal or openly carry a firearm. The law means any citizen of that state has the right to carry a firearm without a licence or a permit.

The law was backed by the NRA, and leaders within the organization called the move “a monumental moment for the Second Amendment”.

Why are mass shootings rare in other countries despite high levels of gun ownership?

The Week

Why are mass shootings rare in other countries despite high levels of gun ownership?

Justin Klawans, Staff writer – May 9, 2023

There is no question the United States has a ton of guns — more than anywhere else in the world by far. There are an estimated 352 million guns in private circulation in the U.S., according to data collected by The Trace, and some other studies cited by the outlet suggest the number is even higher.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the U.S. leads the world in mass shootings. There have already been over 180 of these incidents in 2023 alone, The New York Times reports. Many mass shootings occur in schools; since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, more than 352,000 students have experienced gun violence in the classroom, according to The Washington Post.

While the United States leads the world in number of firearms, it’s hardly the only country where gun ownership is high. Yet in most other countries, mass shootings are rare, if not unheard of, mainly due to gun laws being significantly stricter than they are in the U.S. Between 2009 and 2015, there were just 19 mass shootings in all of Europe, research shows. School shootings are even rarer, and World Population Review reports that every country besides the U.S. has had less than 10 of them in 2023. These are five nations that have high numbers of firearms but little trouble with shootings.

Finland

There are an estimated 1.5 million licensed firearms in Finland, the country’s interior ministry reports, in a nation of just 5.6 million. This high rate of gun ownership is due to an activity widely seen in Finland (and many other nations): hunting. Finns “have hunted and fished for food for thousands of years,” Slate reports, and “hunting remains a popular weekend, or even after-work, activity.” Finland’s large area provides ample space for the hunting industry to flourish.

Despite this, Finland has had less than five documented cases of mass shootings. This is because, like most of the Nordic countries, Finland has highly regulated gun control laws. Following a school shooting in 2007, Finnish Parliament raised the minimum age to purchase a gun from 15 to 18, and the prospective buyer must fill out a detailed application to receive a handling license. The interior ministry has also implemented “changes to the provisions on the storage of firearms, component parts of firearms, and cartridges,” as well as additional legislation to ensure guns remain safely locked away when not in use.

Switzerland

Like Finland, hunting is a part of life in Switzerland, which may be why the Alpine country has approximately 2 million privately owned guns, Insider reports, in a country of just 8.7 million people. Despite this staggeringly high rate of gun ownership, though, there has not been a mass shooting in Switzerland in more than 20 years.

Insider notes that the U.S.’ National Rifle Association often points to Switzerland as an example of gun laws not being necessary, because they claim the Swiss have limited legislation on firearms. But this is simply not true. Firearms in Switzerland are highly controlled and regulated, according to the official Swiss Confederacy portal. Semi-automatic rifles with large magazines are banned, and people who want to purchase handguns or smaller magazine semi-automatic rifles must undergo a permitting process and send their weapon’s information to the government.

Canada

Canada’s vast northern lands make it another ample country for hunting, which contributes to the 7.1 million firearms in private hands, according to the Canadian government, in a nation of 39 million people. This statistic lies in a similar range with comparable Western nations, the government notes, except the United States.

The country has had a few recent mass shootings, including one in 2020. Despite this, instances of mass violence remain very rare, Reutersreports. This is because Canada has some of the harshest regulations against assault rifles in the world, and the nation’s public safety arm notes Canada “has prohibited over 1,500 models of assault-style firearms and certain components of some newly prohibited firearms.” Many of these weapons became newly prohibited following the 2020 mass shooting, and there are also limits in the Canadian criminal code placing restrictions on the number of rounds in rifles, handguns and shotguns.

New Zealand

New Zealand also has a lot of guns — 1.5 million in a country of just 5.1 million people — but unlike the United States, New Zealand took legislative action after a tragedy.

Following a 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch that killed 51 people, then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern implemented a series of sweeping reforms to the country’s already strict gun laws. Ardern announced these reforms just one week after the shooting, Time reports, and the new laws were pushed through parliament almost immediately. The laws included creating a firearms registry and placing a complete ban on AR-15s and other assault rifles. New Zealand also created a gun buyback program to try and get weapons off the streets. By the end of the program, Kiwis had turned in more than 50,000 guns, NPR reports, greatly slashing the number of firearms on the streets of New Zealand.

Australia

Like their neighbors to the southeast, Australia also has a high rate of gun ownership, and the University of Syndey notes there are about 3.5 million registered firearms in the nation of 26.4 million. However, the university also reports that the “proportion of Australian households with a firearm has fallen by 75% in recent decades.”

This drop was similarly spurned by just a single tragedy: the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania. Thirty-five people died in the worst mass shooting in Australian history, and the country’s conservative government enacted similar new restrictions on guns. This includes a national gun registry, and Time notes that firearm license applications must prove the prospective owner has “a ‘genuine need’ to own weapons.” The Aussies also implemented a gun buyback program after Port Arthur, and Vox reports the country confiscated 650,000 weapons. There have been almost no mass shootings in Australia since then.

Putin may not outrun the warrant for his arrest – history shows that several leaders on the run eventually face charges in court

The Conversation

Putin may not outrun the warrant for his arrest – history shows that several leaders on the run eventually face charges in court

Aaron Fichtelberg, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware – May 9, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin is shown in Moscow in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. <a href= — Russian President Vladimir Putin is shown in Moscow in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Mikhaul Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

The Russian government, U.S. President Joe Biden and mainstream Western media are among the observers who all responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant for war crimes with a shrug.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court announced the warrant for Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, because they allegedly directed the abduction of Ukrainian children. The court says that these charges amount to war crimes.

While Biden said the arrest warrant was “justified,” he also noted that the International Criminal Court “is not recognized by us either.”

The skeptics have a point – the ICC, based in the Hague, Netherlands, does not have its own police force to execute its orders and must rely on other countries’ police to arrest the people it indicts.

Indeed, there are a number of barriers potentially preventing Putin’s arrest.

One is that Russia, like the United States, is not a member of the court – so as long as Putin does not set foot in a country that is a member of the court, he is safe from arrest. Putin also remains popular within Russia and is unlikely to soon be overthrown and turned over by his successor.

But it still would be rash to assume that Putin is safe from the court’s grasp.

I am a scholar of criminal justice who specializes in international courts and the creativity that prosecutors show in catching their targets, often under very difficult political circumstances.

History shows that it would require a little bit of good luck for prosecutors – and a few bad decisions by Putin – for the Russian autocrat to end up in handcuffs. But it’s far from impossible.

The ICC’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin is seen in a news release in March 2023. <a href= — The ICC’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin is seen in a news release in March 2023. Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

How international courts work

A group of 60 countries established the International Criminal Court in 2002 to prosecute people who commit the worst crimes, including genocide and wartime sexual violence, that violate international law. The court is part of a long line of international criminal tribunals going back to the military tribunal the U.S. and allies set up to prosecute Nazis at the end of World War II, as part of the Nuremberg Trials.

There are other international criminal courts that prosecute war crimes, but the ICC is the largest and arguably most influential, since 123 member countries fund the court and abide by its rulings.

Since its inception, the ICC has issued 38 arrest warrants, arrested 21 people, convicted 10 and acquitted four. Other suspects, like Putin, remain at large or have had their charges dropped.

Yet there are a number of options for prosecuting war crimes outside of the ICC that have been used in the past.

There are also other, smaller tribunals similar to the ICC that countries have helped set up to focus on specific conflicts. In other cases, individual countries can use their own courts to prosecute international criminals who have evaded arrest abroad.

In the case of the Ukraine war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a new international tribunal to prosecute war crimes committed by Russia during the conflict. Others have argued that Putin could be prosecuted in a Ukrainian court specifically designed for this purpose.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor appears in court in July 2006 in the Netherlands. <a href= — Former Liberian President Charles Taylor appears in court in July 2006 in the Netherlands. Rob Keeris/AFP via Getty Images

Lessons for Putin

There have been several long but ultimately successful efforts to arrest fallen political leaders and mass murderers.

For example, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who helped instigate a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone in the 1990s, is now serving a 50-year prison sentence in the United Kingdom.

Prosecutors from an international tribunal set up in Sierra Leone announced Taylor’s indictment when he was in Ghana in 2002, forcing him to quickly flee a political conference and head home for safety. But Taylor then fell from power in 2003, in the midst of a rebel insurgency. He then fled to Nigeria.

Eventually, Nigerian authorities arrested Taylor and handed him back to Liberia, which quickly passed him off to Sierra Leone for trial in 2006. He was then convicted in 2012.

Slobodan Milošević, the late president of Yugoslavia, was indicted by an international tribunal that addressed the Balkans wars – along with two of his cronies, Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić –- for crimes committed against civilians during the wars in the 1990s.

They, too, initially evaded jurisdiction – Milošević initially remained in power, while Mladić and Karadžić went into hiding. Serbian authorities ultimately handed Milošević over to the International Criminal Court in 2001, months after he stepped down from his post in 2000. Serbian police arrested Mladić and Karadžić about a decade later.

All three faced trial in the Hague. Milošević died while on trial in 2006. Mladić and Karadžić are now serving life sentences.

And in Finland, former Sierra Leone rebel group leader Gibril Massaquoi is facing trial for war crimes he committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war from 1991 to 2002.

Prosecutors at a Sierra Leone tribunal granted Massaquoi immunity in 2009 in exchange for his testimony against other rebels. He then relocated to Finland under a witness protection program.

But that did not stop Finnish prosecutors, who arrested Massaquoi in March 2020. His trial is currently under appeal in Finnish court system following Massaquoi’s acquittal by a lower Finish court in 2022.

Even without prosecution, life won’t be good

There are people such as Omar Al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, who have so far avoided extradition to an international court. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir in 2009 for allegedly committing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Al-Bashir remains in Sudan and has continued to avoid the ICC’s arrest warrant. But with the current civil war in Sudan, the warring powers may yet conclude that they’re better off with Al-Bashir in the Hague and away from Sudan.

But even if Putin isn’t prosecuted, his life will probably get much more difficult as a result of the arrest warrant.

When the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet left office in 1998, he declared himself “Senator for Life,” ensuring under Chilean law that he would never be prosecuted for the tortures, killings and disappearances of leftist political opponents that took place on his watch.

But while Pinochet was receiving care for a back injury in London, a Spanish judge requested his extradition to Spain, and he was arrested by British police in 1998.

After over a year of legal limbo, the British government declared that Pinochet was mentally unfit for extradition and returned him to Chile. By then, he was a very diminished man and the target of many lawsuits before his death in 2006.

Putin may ultimately elude prosecution, but not the effects of the charges against him.

History shows that prosecutors are willing to wait for years for their targets to either fall from power or make that crucial mistake that exposes them to arrest, such as a medical emergency abroad or a visit to a country that is willing to cooperate with international prosecutors.

Read more:

Aaron Fichtelberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

‘Raise the age’ gun bill passes Texas committee after months of advocacy by Uvalde families

USA Today

‘Raise the age’ gun bill passes Texas committee after months of advocacy by Uvalde families

Niki Griswold, USA TODAY NETWORK – May 9, 2023

In a shocking and last-minute turn of events in Texas, a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 passed out of a House committee Monday, advancing the measure hours before a key deadline.

Several Uvalde victims’ relatives burst into sobs and cheers in the Capitol hearing room when two Republicans joined all the Democrats on the committee to advance the bill by an 8-5 vote.

“I’m feeling very overwhelmed, very emotional,” Kimberly Garcia said through tears after the committee vote. Her 10-year-old daughter, Amerie Jo Garza, was one of the 19 fourth graders and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.

“I was super worried, but I feel like my daughter did this, and I feel like she’s making a difference, and I’m proud of her. I hate that it’s come down to this, but I know that she’s always with me, and I know that I’m not going to let anyone ever forget her,” Garcia said.

Uvalde victims’ relatives have been advocating for lawmakers to pass House Bill 2744 for months, coming to the Capitol nearly every week during the legislative session to demand its passage and even waiting more than 13 hours to testify in support of the bill in a committee hearing in April.

Their unrelenting push for lawmakers to pass gun control legislation has been an uphill battle in a Republican-dominated Legislature that has loosened gun restrictions in recent sessions. Monday’s vote, however, was a significant victory for the families.

As recently as 10 a.m. Monday, Rio Grande City Republican Rep. Ryan Guillen, who chairs the committee where the bill was pending, had said he was not planning to bring the bill up for a vote because he didn’t believe it had the votes to pass in the full House.

But by 11 a.m., after an emotional protest and news conference by the Uvalde families and gun control activists Monday, Guillen changed course.

The Uvalde gunman purchased his AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle legally just days after his 18th birthday, having unsuccessfully tried to acquire one before he was legally old enough to do so under state law.

While Monday’s progress was a major, and unexpected, step forward, the future of the bill remains uncertain. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan previously said he would be willing to let a debate on the bill play out on the House floor but cautioned that he doesn’t believe it has the votes to pass the House.

Gov. Greg Abbott has said he believes the measure to be unconstitutional. A spokesperson for the speaker’s office declined to comment on the bill’s progress Monday, and a representative for the governor did not immediately return a request for comment.

Family members of Uvalde victims Julissa Rizo and Javier Cazarez hug after the House Select Committee on Community Safety votes HB2744 out of committee at the Texas Capitol Monday, May 8, 2023. HB2744 would raise the age to purchase assault weapons.

A Refugee From Another Time Gets an Eviction Notice

The New York Times

A Refugee From Another Time Gets an Eviction Notice

Dan Barry – May 8, 2023

NEW YORK — The travails of many can be lucrative for a few. Take the old Stewart Hotel in Manhattan, which is being used as temporary housing for some of the tens of thousands of migrants who have come north to New York in search of sanctuary.

The city is paying a $200 nightly rate for 611 rooms in the nearly century-old hotel. This comes to roughly $6,000 a month for each room, or about $3.66 million a month for the hotel’s owners.

While they collect favorable rates for their fully booked hotel, the owners are also suing to evict the wisp of a man paying $865 a month for Room 1810: William Mackiw, who has lived there for so long that no one knows when he first appeared. It has been decades.

At some point, he moved in with the rent-stabilized room’s tenant, his aunt Louise. At some point, she died. Again, it has been decades.

And he just kept paying the modest rent with what he earned as a waiter in restaurants of casual fare. Your Howard Johnson’s. Your Beefsteak Charlie’s. Month after month, year after year.

Mackiw, 82 and retired, lives among the relics of a solitary life rooted in the past. Piles of old movies on VHS and DVD. Threadbare shirts hanging above the discolored bathtub. A broken TV. A dust-covered rotary phone. Four pairs of black shoes gathered on the floor like a flock of crows.

Within his confined world, the tight boundaries of which include a church and a market, he lived mostly unseen. Until a few months ago, that is, when someone knocked on his door and handed him a document. Its message:

“Time for you to leave,” Mackiw recalled.

In 10 days.

With that, the economic, societal and geopolitical pressures of the larger world combined to upend his tiny speck of it, and not for the first time. Mackiw was also an immigrant refugee, once. He needed sanctuary then, and may soon need it again.

In November 1949, the General C.C. Ballou, a reconfigured Army transport ship whose amenities included a children’s playroom, departed the German port of Bremerhaven. Aboard were 1,265 of the many millions of Europeans displaced by the upheaval of World War II.

According to records kept by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, the passengers included Celestyn and Sofia Mackiw and their two sons, Zygfryd, 12, and Wilhelm, 9. The Ukrainian family had most recently been living in a displacement camp in Aschaffenburg, Germany, where the uprooted, persecuted and traumatized received food, clothing and medical care.

Asked why his family left Europe, Mackiw said, simply, “Because of the war.” His failing memory recalls only flashes of his disrupted boyhood: being terrified by the bombs; bringing food to Jews harbored by his mother; living in camps.

Once in the United States, the Mackiws settled into a walk-up building in an East Village neighborhood sometimes called Little Ukraine. He remembers his mother as “an incredible woman” and his father as a daring window cleaner who “didn’t bother with the belts.”

The family later moved to Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. Mackiw attended the city’s Machine and Metal Trades High School, became an American citizen in 1959 and held a series of blue-collar jobs before waiting on tables full time.

“I worked in the restaurants,” he said.

Among them was Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane, a Theater District hangout for entertainers either well known or yet to be discovered. They all gravitated toward Franklin, a longtime radio and television host known for his command of entertainment history.

“The King of Nostalgia,” proclaimed his business cards, one of which sits amid the Room 1810 clutter. He died in 2015.

As Franklin held court with the likes of Soupy Sales and “Professor” Irwin Corey — you should look them up — his waiter of choice was Mackiw.

“Joe specifically sat in the section where William would be serving,” recalled Arnold Wachtel, a Joe Franklin’s customer who once ran Times Square gift and novelty shops such as the Fun Emporium and the Funny Store. “They used to reminisce about old movies and swap copies of movies on videos and DVDs.”

At shift’s end, the diminutive waiter would place a hat on his bald head and go back to the Stewart at Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, back to Room 1810.

The 31-story hotel opened in 1929 as the Hotel Governor Clinton — a lesser version of its grand neighbor, the Hotel Pennsylvania — and experienced the typical ups, downs and changes of the hospitality industry. But some aspects seemed permanent, from the art deco touches in the lobby to a few tenants in the rooms above.

Specifics are murky, but a few decades ago, perhaps as early as the 1970s, a retired seamstress named Louise Hirschfeld moved into 1810, a one-room apartment with a bathroom and kitchenette. She was a sister of Mackiw’s mother, Sofia.

The date of Mackiw’s arrival has been lost in the Manhattan blur of time. He slept on the couch while his aunt slept in the bed. Then she left for France, where her son and grandchildren lived and where she died at 81. In 1995.

Mackiw continued to pay the monthly rent with cash or a money order, and to collect receipts bearing the name of his dead aunt. When he wasn’t lingering in the lobby, shopping for food on Ninth Avenue or praying at St. Francis of Assisi Church around the corner, he was in his room, watching movies from the extensive Mackiw collection.

These portals of escape are scattered by the dozens on the floor. “King Kong.” “Broken Arrow.” “It Came From Outer Space.” “To Have and Have Not.” And his favorite: “Gone With the Wind.”

His routine did not change as time passed, as the city evolved, as the hotel came under new ownership. In 2016, the building was bought by a limited liability corporation whose partners declined through their lawyer last week to identify themselves. City records identify two of them as Isaac Chetrit, who with his brother, Eli, owns the AB & Sons investment group, and Ray Yadidi, who with his brother, Jack, owns the Sioni Group real estate firm.

The first threat to Mackiw’s insular world came early last year, when the owners informed the half-dozen permanent residents that they would be providing relocation assistance while the building underwent extensive renovations. The plan was to close the hotel and spend up to three years converting it into a 625-unit apartment building.

This, apparently, was when the owners discovered that Mackiw, not the late Louise Hirschfeld, was occupying Room 1810. Even though he had personally handed over the rent every month for years.

After this revelation, Mackiw said, hotel representatives came to his door more than once to tell him in a forceful and threatening manner that he had to vacate the room. The hotel denies ever harassing him.

At the same time, a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in New York, as thousands of migrants from Central and South America came to escape crime and economic uncertainty. Many arrived by bus, courtesy of the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas, who wanted to give the Northeast a taste of everyday life along the southern border.

The hotel’s owners set aside their conversion plans and, in mid-September, agreed to allow the city to rent half the building, including 300 rooms, for use as an intake center and refuge for asylum-seekers.

It wasn’t enough. In mid-December, the city signed a new contract to take effective control of the entire hotel, including the lobby, the ballroom and 611 rooms (at $200 a night). The agreement, which gave temporary housing to about 2,000 migrants, did not include the several units occupied by permanent residents.

The same week in September that the hotel began renting rooms to the city at market rates, a process server handed a 10-day eviction notice to the man who answered a knock on the door of Room 1810. The server described Mackiw this way:

Height: 5-foot-5.

Weight: 110 pounds.

Approximate age: 83.

Hair: Hat.

By this point, a distressed Mackiw had reached out to Wachtel, his old Joe Franklin’s customer, who had not heard from him in more than a dozen years. But as the son of a Holocaust survivor, Wachtel was moved by the older man’s ordeal — “The man is terrified” — and family memories of harboring Jews during the war.

“He’s a nice guy,” Wachtel said. “He prays for me and my family.”

Wachtel made phone calls, sent emails and arranged to become Mackiw’s power of attorney. He also contacted the Goddard Riverside Law Project, which specializes in the rights of single-room-occupancy (SRO) tenants. It agreed to take the Housing Court case of CYH Manhattan LLC against William Mackiw aka Bill Mackiw.

Daniel Evans, a lawyer with Goddard Riverside, said that under the city’s rent-stabilization codes, Mackiw acquired the rights and protections of a permanent SRO resident once he had spent six months in the apartment. There is no dispute that his stay has been much longer than six months — much, much longer.

“It’s outrageous that they would bring this type of case after 40 years of Mr. Mackiw living there,” Evans said. “Especially when he’s paying the rent himself at the front desk. They know he’s there.”

In a telephone interview, Lisa Faham-Selzer, a lawyer representing the owners, declined to answer a series of questions, including how long Mackiw had lived in the hotel and why the hotel had accepted payment from him for decades.

“This is a strong case with very, very clear allegations,” she said.

A hint of those allegations is contained in a recent court filing, in which the owners contend that Mackiw “has been posing as Louise Hirschfeld for decades.” By doing so, they argue, he “has been perpetrating a fraud.”

The case is pending. Court records do not indicate eviction proceedings brought against any of the hotel’s other permanent tenants, although one moved out after receiving a $10,000 buyout.

For now, Mackiw, a refugee from another time, continues to live among the refugees of today, fretting to the point of tears about his future.

He stays mostly in Room 1810, his longtime home. There, during a recent visit, the only food seemed to be milk, some cheese slices, peanut butter, a box of Cheerios, a pack of vanilla Oreos and a few Hershey chocolate bars.

“You want a Hershey?” asked the old waiter.

DOJ charges ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter IDed after an ex spotted her in a viral FBI tweet

NBC News

DOJ charges ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter IDed after an ex spotted her in a viral FBI tweet

Ryan J. Reilly – May 8, 2023

WASHINGTON — A woman who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 while wearing a pink beret and was recently identified to the FBI by an ex-romantic partner was charged with four federal counts Monday.

As NBC News first reported, an ex identified Jennifer Inzunza Vargas Geller of California and reported her to the FBI after the bureau featured her in a viral tweet last month. She faces four misdemeanor counts: entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in the Capitol grounds or buildings and unlawfully parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. She was not in custody Monday, a law enforcement source said, but there is now a warrant out for her arrest.

For more than two years, online sleuths who identified hundreds of participants in connection with the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, had been unable to determine Vargas Geller’s identity, and the woman they dubbed #PinkBeret had been the subject of online conspiracy theories. An attorney for another Jan. 6 defendant suggested she was working at the behest of the government.

But the last weekend of April, a clothing designer Vargas Geller used to date was standing in the checkout line at a Joann Fabric and Crafts store when his buddy showed him a funny tweet from the FBI’s Washington field office on his phone.

Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

“He’s always on Twitter, and he said something like, ‘Yo, check out this chick,'” the designer said.“I stopped dead in my tracks,” he said. “I’m like, ‘That’s Jenny.’”

While most recent tweets from the Washington field office account had received a few thousand views, the tweet featuring Vargas Geller racked up millions. Twitter users dubbed her “Insurrection Eva Braun” and “fascist Matilda” and compared her to April Ludgate, the character played by Aubrey Plaza in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” Several users joked that she seemed straight out of a Wes Anderson movie, and one user tweeted “Emily in-carceration,” referring to the show “Emily in Paris.”

Vargas Geller was charged 11 days after the viral tweet, which is an extremely quick turnaround compared to other Jan. 6 cases. Online sleuths have identified hundreds of additional Capitol riot participants who have not been charged, some of whom were first IDed more than two years ago, in 2021.

Vargas Geller was from Sacramento, the clothing designer said, and she went to meet him in Los Angeles in early 2019, when they were in their early 20s. “We weren’t, like, trying to get married or anything,” he said. “We were hooking up for a few months.”

But there was a red flag that sparked a breakup: Vargas Geller, he said, wrote on Discord that she was reading Adolf Hitler’s 1925 manifesto.

“I was just instantly turned off, like, ‘Yo, I don’t think this is going to work out,’” he said. “You’re, like, reading ‘Mein Kampf.’ You think immigrants don’t deserve X, Y, Z.” (A social media account linked to Vargas Geller, viewed by NBC News, also referred to Hitler.)

Vargas Geller could not be reached for comment.

Kira West, the defense attorney for Jan. 6 defendant Darrell Neely, who suggested “Pink Beret” was working as a government agent, said after Vargas Geller was identified that the government should have tried to ID her sooner.

“Our question is why they weren’t looking sooner when we brought it to their attention long ago? Especially with Mr. Neely’s liberty on the line,” West said.

Vargas Geller’s ex knew she had traveled to Washington and asked her whether she was on the “no fly” list in a message he wrote to her a few days after the attack.

“Nope, cause I didn’t go into the [Capitol],” she wrote, despite extensive video evidence later viewed by NBC News and cited in Monday’s affidavit that the FBI says shows her inside the building.

“But you still crossed state lines to riot,” he replied.

“I was there to support the president. Not to partake in that riot. I support the police,” Vargas Geller responded on Jan. 10, 2021, in a conservation shared with NBC News.

Jennifer Vargas inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)

Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,000 people in connection with the Capitol attack, and hundreds of additional participants who have been identified have not yet been arrested.

Most defendants who face charges similar to Vargas Geller’s have received either probation or short sentences of incarceration. The longest sentence — more than 14 years in federal prison — went to a violent rioter with an extensive criminal record.

Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes

Daily Beast

Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes

Martin Sheil – May 5, 2023

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty

Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.

Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.

That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-11-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Clarence Thomas Has Some Obscenely ‘Generous’ Friends

But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?

It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.

If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.

The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.

<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C. </p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">Jemal Countess / Getty </div> — Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C.Jemal Countess / Getty

Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.

If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.

What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.

“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.

Oh my!

Now Would Be a Good Time to Investigate Ginni Thomas

Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?

Oh me oh my!

Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.

Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.

<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy, center, joins other activists calling for ethics reform in the U.S. Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for accepting luxury trips nearly every year for more than two decades from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms.</p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">J. Scott Applewhite / AP</div> — Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy, center, joins other activists calling for ethics reform in the U.S. Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for accepting luxury trips nearly every year for more than two decades from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms.J. Scott Applewhite / AP

But why is this question even significant?

It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.

Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.

What about corporate political donations?

There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.

Clarence Thomas Shows Why Supreme Court Justices Cannot Be Above the Law

Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.

That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.

Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)

These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful.

“No mention of Ginni.’ Conservative activist directed money to wife of Justice Clarence Thomas

USA Today

“No mention of Ginni.’ Conservative activist directed money to wife of Justice Clarence Thomas

John Fritze, USA TODAY – May 5, 2023

WASHINGTON − A well-known conservative legal activist who has helped shape the modern Supreme Court arranged for the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas to receive tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work, according to a report Thursday in The Washington Post.

Leonard Leo, the former longtime vice president of the Federalist Society who helped President Donald Trump’s administration vet nominees for the high court, instructed Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit called the Judicial Education Project and to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas $25,000, The Post reported. Leo made the request in 2012.

“No mention of Ginni, of course,” The Post quoted Leo instructing Conway.

The Post reported that Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, paid Ginni Thomas’s firm $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012 and expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. It was not clear what the money was for, though Leo told The Post in a statement that it “involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment.”

The revelation was the latest in a series of reports in recent weeks about money and gifts Thomas and his family have received from outside interests. Earlier Thursday, ProPublica reported that GOP megadonor Harlan Crow had paid private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew. Last month, ProPublica revealed new details about private jet travel and luxury yacht trips Thomas also accepted from Crow.

In his statement to The Post, Leo explained his desire to keep Ginni Thomas’ name off the paperwork by asserting he has “always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni” because of how “disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas listens as President Donald Trump speaks before administering the Constitutional Oath to Amy Coney Barrett on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, after she was confirmed by the Senate earlier in the evening. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Thomas’s problems multiply at Supreme Court

The Hill

Clarence Thomas’s problems multiply at Supreme Court

Al Weaver – May 5, 2023

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing a fresh round of scrutiny after the third blockbuster report in less than a month links him financially to GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

ProPublica reported Thursday that Crow, a Dallas-based real estate developer, paid thousands of dollars in tuition to a private boarding school for Thomas’s great-nephew, whom Thomas has said he raised “as a son.”

Federal ethics laws require the justices to report gifts given to a “dependent child,” but that term is defined to only include the justices’ children or stepchildren. Thomas’s allies have insisted the payment doesn’t violate the disclosure law since it was for Thomas’s sister’s grandson.

But the revelation has only added to the increasing pressure from Democrats for the justices to adopt a binding code of ethics.

“Today’s report continues a steady stream of revelations calling Justices’ ethics standards and practices into question. I hope that the Chief Justice understands that something must be done—the reputation and credibility of the Court is at stake,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.

When asked during a SiriusXM interview about impeaching Thomas, however, Durbin said “no.” He noted that only one justice, Samuel Chase, had been impeached previously, and Chase was acquitted in the Senate in 1805.

“I don’t think an impeachment is in the works, particularly with the House in a political situation that it’s in today,” Durbin said on “The Briefing with Steve Scully.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Judiciary Committee member, argued the matter should be referred to the Department of Justice.

“There’s a potential criminal violation in the misreporting or failure to report certain benefits, gifts and financial transactions. There’s just a drip, drip, drip of additional information that is gravely undermining the Court, but also creating the need for a full factual investigation,” Blumenthal said.

“If [the Justice Department] fails to do so, Congress definitely has a role,” he added.

Thomas did not return a request for comment through a court spokesperson.

Later on Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Leonard Leo, a conservative judicial activist who played a key role in the Supreme Court’s rightward shift, directed tens of thousands of dollars be paid to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, roughly a decade ago.

Leo requested that she not be named in the paperwork, according to the Post. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist herself, has long insisted that she doesn’t talk about the court’s business with her husband.

Judiciary Committee Democrats have been hamstrung on taking action regarding the court, including on a potential subpoena for Chief Justice John Roberts. He declined an invitation from Durbin to appear at a Tuesday hearing on Supreme Court ethics, noting that it is “exceedingly rare” for a chief justice to give testimony.

That could change if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been absent for months due to shingles, returns and once again gives Democrats an 11-10 majority on the panel — though even then subpoenaing the chief justice of the Supreme Court would be an extraordinary step.

Thursday’s ProPublica report was the latest financial transaction involving Thomas and Crow to come to light. The investigative outlet last month reported Thomas had accepted luxury trips from Crow, including flying on his private jet, without disclosing the travels.

ProPublica also reported Crow had purchased real estate from Thomas’s mother that Thomas had an interest in.

“The definition of insanity is seeing the same Supreme Court justice violate ethics rules over and over again and expecting him to actually hold himself accountable,” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund, said in a statement. “How many more examples of Thomas flouting disclosure rules do our elected leaders need to see before they intervene? Thomas needs to answer for his misconduct. It’s time to subpoena him.”

Republicans, on the other hand, indicated little willingness to wade into the waters related to the justice who has served on the court for 32 years. They say this is an issue for the Supreme Court to deal with and not something that requires congressional oversight. Interfering, they argue, would go against the separation of powers.

“The Supreme Court … writes its own rules and if there is any policing of those rules to be done, I think it ought to be done by them,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters. “I assume the members of the Court, who I have a high level of confidence in, will make the right decisions for the justices on the Court and for the people who work at the Supreme Court in the same way as we make the rules for all members of Congress.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who recently indicated that he was dismayed by reports of the ethical issues for Thomas, said the Court needs to make ethics changes.

“These revelations with regards to a number of justices, both those appointed by Republicans and by Democrats, suggest that the Court itself needs to evaluate what their disclosure rules are and ethics rules are and methods for enforcing those,” Romney said. “I presume that the chief justice will undertake that.”

Republicans have further portrayed the Thomas scrutiny as a double standard, taking aim at the ethics of the high court’s liberal justices.

They note that liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted an award in 2010 from the Woman’s National Democratic Club.

They have also pointed to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor not recusing herself when the court considered taking up two cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House, despite disclosing payments from the conglomerate for her books. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also received payments from the publisher for his book, similarly did not recuse.