DHS Says it Won’t Eliminate Oversight Offices but is Still Pursuing Layoffs
The Homeland Security Department is no longer planning on shuttering three oversight offices whose entire workforces were told in March that they were being laid off. Officials are still going through with reductions in force, however, leading to continued questions from stakeholders about the ability of migrants and members of the public to report civil rights violations. A coalition of groups, including RFK Human Rights, that filed a lawsuit to block the offices’ closures attributed the notices to a federal judge who during a May 23 hearing “instructed lawyers for DHS to clarify in a public statement that the offices are not being abolished.”
Proposed Prison Reform Would Raise Prisoners’ Pay, Control Prices, End Forced Labor
Legislators, advocates, and people with firsthand experience in New York prisons gathered at the Capitol in Albany on Tuesday morning to push for prison labor reforms. The lead measure, the No Slavery in New York Act (S7282/A7873), would codify a ban on slavery for every New Yorker, including those who are incarcerated. The measure would close a constitutional loophole left by the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery “except as punishment for crime.” It would amend the state Civil Rights Law to explicitly ban slavery, involuntary servitude, and forced labor.
UN Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Human Rights Crisis in Myanmar as Violence and Economic Collapse Deepen
Myanmar’s spiralling human rights crisis–fuelled by relentless military violence, systemic impunity and economic collapse–has left civilians caught in the crossfire of an increasingly brutal conflict, according to a new report by the UN human rights office (OHCHR). Published ahead of the Human Rights Council’s upcoming session, the report highlighted the worsening situation since the military coup in 2021, which derailed Myanmar’s democratic transition and ignited widespread armed resistance.
Why Mexico’s Judicial Election Matters
Mexican voters face a daunting task on Sunday. For the first time in the country’s history, they will elect more than 2,600 judges and magistrates, including those who will sit on the Supreme Court and hundreds of other federal, state and local tribunals. The election will move the judiciary from an appointment-based system to one in which voters will choose their judges. Supporters of the overhaul argue it makes the system more democratic and counteracts problems like nepotism and corruption. Critics say it risks giving the governing party more power and opens the courts to candidates who lack experience and qualifications, or could be influenced by criminal groups like cartels.