US attorneys rally to free children held in immigration custody
An army of attorneys is rallying to free hundreds of children from immigration custody, where they have been stranded indefinitely by the Trump administration without their parents or loved ones, the Guardian can reveal.
The effort is a counter strike to what critics see as unprecedented moves by federal officials to ride roughshod over children’s rights and increase deportations – while in the meantime corralling them in conditions that can allegedly lead to psychological harm.
Around 1,900 kids who arrived in the US unaccompanied by a parent or guardian were under the federal government’s control across the country as of the end of August. From babies to teenagers, children have spent an average of 183 days – roughly six months – in shelters or long-term foster care, according to the government’s own data , despite many of them having family members in the United States anxiously awaiting their release as their legal cases proceed through the immigration system.
Now, more than 50 legal organizations, firms and law offices have mobilized to join a mission they are calling the Children’s Due Process Project, where lawyers working pro bono head to federal courts to argue case-by-case that these kids are being detained unlawfully.
The immediate goal is to use highly effective habeas corpus petitions to force federal officials to justify their actions in keeping the children in their custody or let them go, the Guardian has exclusively learned.
Related: Revealed: US attorneys rally to free children held in immigration custody
Democrats are targeting vulnerable seats this midterm election with working-class candidates they hope will resonate with voters exhausted by the economy.
Some candidates are new to politics, and many have backgrounds as union members and leaders, which the party hopes will give them an edge over Republican incumbents as people have grown weary of Washington and the higher cost of living.
One of these new candidates is Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse who Democrats hope will flip a Wisconsin House seat by emphasizing his experience as a worker.
“Being a nurse working in the emergency room, we don’t have the luxury of standing around and not delivering for our patients. We have to make sure that we are addressing concerns in the immediate, making sure that when our patients come in, they leave the emergency department in better condition than they arrive,” Berman said. “That is not happening for folks here in our district.”
Berman is running in a swing district that polling shows is leaning Republican for the House race. It’s the same district that former House speaker Paul Ryan represented from 2015 until he left office in 2019, when he was replaced by Bryan Steil, a corporate attorney and former Ryan aide.
Berman is trying to convince voters that Steil has been out of touch with voters who are seeing costs rise because of White House policies. The campaign is paralleling Steil with Berman, who has worked in healthcare for more than 20 years.
Related: Working-class ER nurse seeks to flip battleground Wisconsin House seat
The White House is pressuring American space companies, including billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to decline French president Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to a space summit in Paris next week, according to a Politico report.
In a private call, a White House official told companies – including SpaceX, Stoke Space, K2 Space and Astra, that attending the two-day event “could look like tacit support for EU policy positions,” three anonymous sources familiar with the call told Politico.
The sources also said the White House official, who works in the science and technology policy office, emphasized that the decision to attend is up to the companies, but the discouragement was noted.
The White House official also told industry representatives that “France did not coordinate with the US on the summit, accused the country of ‘anti-competitive practices,’ and suggested the event’s panels were not designed to include the American perspective and may diminish US industry efforts,” according to Politico’s sources.
Politico said two of the sources were connected to space companies and the third was in politics.
Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ for US users after Trump order
Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.
The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.
Apple had been reportedly mulling whether to submit to Trump’s new order after receiving a personal request from the president for the tech company to change the lake’s name.
Trump welcomed the news, declaring in a Truth Social post that the adoption of “Lake America” by Google Maps and Apple Maps meant the name change was “complete, ratified, and binding”. However, the US cannot compel Canada – or any other country – to also change the name.
The US president officially unveiled the name swap last week. He did not mention his escalating trade feud with the US’s northern neighbors in the order, but the timing suggested a retaliatory move after Canadian officials denounced Trump’s new sweeping tariffs and promised to instate tariffs of their own.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, rejected the attempt to rename the body of water, saying in a post on social media that the lake’s name comes from the language of the Indigenous Wendat people and predates both the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.
Related: Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ for US users after Trump order
Judge blocks new Trump bid against birthright citizenship
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A US federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new executive order limiting who qualifies for birthright citizenship.
The move thwarts President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict the constitutional right, which comes after the US supreme court rejected his previous effort, AFP reported.
US district judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction following an appeal by rights groups who challenged Trump’s executive order from 6 August targeting what he termed “birth tourism”.
“The supreme court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ’citizens at birth’,” Boardman wrote in her 35-page ruling, adding the president’s August order “is almost certainly unconstitutional”.
“When it comes to attacking birthright citizenship, the Trump administration has lost before this court, lost before the supreme court, and lost again today,” said Shana Khader, legal director at We Are CASA, a Maryland-based group.
Trump’s fresh executive order was aimed at those who he alleges enter the country under the guise of tourism while actually intending to give birth.
The president’s efforts to curb birthright citizenship are part of his wider campaign to limit immigration, which includes expelling millions of undocumented migrants and removing deportation protections from nationals of more than a dozen countries.
House Democrats rejected a constitutional amendment proposed by Republicans to ensure the size of the supreme court is permanently capped at nine justices. The proposal, a Republican effort to make the supreme court a campaign issue ahead of the November midterms, failed 212-206.
House Democratic lawmakers introduced a war powers resolution seeking to stop the Trump administration’s boat strikes. Gregory W Meeks, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and Bennie G Thompson said people have been killed “without due process” in attacks never authorized by Congress.
Senator Richard Blumenthal pushed back against a statement from the US Postal Service about its new system to screen millions of mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections. “‘Just trust us’ is not acceptable,” he said.
Donald Trump celebrated the news that Apple had fulfilled his request to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for Maps app users in the US following an executive order that came amid rising trade tensions between the US and Canada.
The Pentagon introduced guidelines for the mandatory new testosterone deficiency screening required for service members age 30 and older, a policy introduced by Pete Hegseth last month.
Trump – claiming that the US has control over the strait of Hormuz despite escalating conflict with Iran and extensive evidence to the contrary – has floated the idea of naming the critical waterway “TRUMP STRAIT”.
An army of attorneys is rallying to free hundreds of children from immigration custody, where they have been stranded indefinitely by the Trump administration without their parents or loved ones, the Guardian can reveal.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Victoria Bekiempis (now) and Tom Ambrose (earlier). Published 3 Sept 2026, 11:41 am.
