- Wong Kim Ark is a Chinese American, a man who was born to Chinese immigrant parents here in San Francisco.

And Wong Kim Ark goes back to China to visit family.

He comes back at the port of entry here in San Francisco.

And the government, just like Donald Trump today, says Wong Kim Ark is not a citizen by birth because his parents were immigrants.

And the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship clause didn't apply to Chinese people.

And the Supreme Court rejected the government's arguments and established in 1898 in the case of Wong Kim Ark, San Franciscan, great San Franciscan, that regardless of your race, regardless of your parents' immigration, status or ancestry, you're an American citizen.

Congress then codifies that vision of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment in 1940, again in 1952.

That's where birthright citizenship comes from.

- Welcome to Forum, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

During the first Trump administration, the ACLU successfully challenged Trump's Muslim ban, border wall and family separation policies.

Since Trump took office for his second term this January, the ACLU has filed, let's call it about 111 lawsuits against the administration defending birthright citizenship, opposing deportations, and challenging executive orders.

As Cecillia Wang, its National Director, Legal Director, notes litigation has been a tool of first resort in protecting people's rights and freedom.

Cecillia Wang joins us this morning to talk about that tool and how it's been used to protect vulnerable communities and mitigate some of the harms that the Trump administration's policies have inflicted on immigrants, L-G-B-T-Q, people and others.

Welcome.

- Thank you Alexis.

So good to be here.

- So the ACLU has sued every administration, but I don't want that to generate kind of a lazy false equivalence for listeners.

How different is what the administration is doing in this second term, different from previous administrations, including Trump's own first term?

- So I'd say Trump in his second term, is different from his first term and from all other administrations in two ways.

The first way is, of course, his what Steve Bannon called Shock and Awe, his exploitation and abuse of executive power to go after not only politically vulnerable and disfavored minority groups like transgender youth or immigrants, but also to go after American communities to go after immigrants who are here with legal status.

His deployment of the National Guard and federal law enforcement agents as a kind of shock force using SWAT style tactics, helicopters, tactical gear, flash-bang grenades, other crowd control weapons against both immigrants and protestors.

The wide range of policies that are deliberately designed to be cruel and to terrorize Americans around the country.

So that's number one.

The second way that I think he's different in the second term is that he has gone after mainstream institutions that are really the backbone of our American democracy.

And what do I mean by that?

His pursuit of lawsuits against mainstream media companies like CBS or the Des Moines Register, or Paramount, his going after private law firms, corporate law firms, because they have dared to represent clients or causes who the president does favors.

He's gone after judges criticizing judges for simply doing their job and he's gone after, of course, universities like Harvard or Columbia.

So in both of these ways, I think you see an administration, a president that have blown past every norm and expectation for lawful and reasonable presidential or executive behavior.

- Is there a unifying or even coherent legal theory about how the president is deploying this power and, and how it's working?

Or is it just, as you said, kind of flooding, flooding the zone or, or shock and awe cross many different things, but there's not really one underlying theory of what the president is doing?

- Well, I think you're right.

Both of those things are true.

You know, I think for, for far too long in this country, and particularly after 9/11, the executive branch has been given so much leeway by the judiciary, by Congress, and frankly by the American people to use discretion whenever he invokes the notion of national security or a national emergency.

And we saw Trump start to use and abuse that leeway, that executive discretion during his first term with the Muslim ban during his first term, when he illegally transferred military construction funds and treasury forfeiture funds to build sections of border wall, for example, that Congress had refused to fund.

And now we see him really like, again, just, just blowing through all the unwritten norms of that con that were supposed to constrain presidential behavior - All presidents, not just Trump.

- That's right, All presidents.

But I, I think what we've learned from Trump, particularly in a second term, is that we really need to put some written legal constraints, some actual guardrails on executive power.

Because what we see with President Donald Trump in a second term is what happens when you come across a president who will ignore those norms, who will not only ignore norms, but written constraints on his power, who will blow through the First Amendment, who will blow through the 14th Amendment citizenship clause, for example.

And so I think you'll see we're seeing two things, a president who will throw anything at the wall in the court of law to see what sticks.

And number two, and I think this is really important, Alexis, he has said again and again in litigation and defending against litigation by people who are harmed by his policies, that the courts have no role in even reviewing executive power.

Thankfully, all of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have, have disagreed with that and have gone ahead and exercised their constitutional role to review what he's doing and to, and to scrutinize it.

- Given what feels like a, just such a different approach to the legal system and the laws of the country.

Do you think you all need different tactics or different strategies to sort of counter these things?

Or are the sort of mechanisms of the legal system working sufficiently well still that you can continue to do what you ha have done in previous administration?

- Two things come to mind.

The first is, we have always recognized that litigation is only one tactic that is part of a larger strategy.

We've got a long-term strategy on immigration on L-G-B-T-Q rights, on women's rights on across the board on civil rights and civil liberties.

And we have known from long experience, again, as you said, as a nonpartisan organization, suing every president when they violate people's rights.

We know that litigation is often the tool of first resort, but it's also part of a larger strategy.

And one of the silver linings of the Trump administration is that you see millions of people who are now opposing the president's policies, opposing the president's cruelty.

October 18th, the ACLU, along with many other organizations, helped to organize the No Kings March, where 7 million Americans in 2,700 locations, cities around the country went out and marched in opposition to President Trump's policies.

That is really the critical tool where you take what our litigation wins and our litigation losses and translate them into the power of the American people to affect longer term change because the power ultimately has to come from the people.

And so we're using tools to channel the power of the people.

For example, Americans around the country going to advocate with their mayors or sheriffs or police chiefs to say, we don't want you to participate in these policies of cruelty that are coming from the federal government that are coming from ICE or border patrol.

And all of that is part of the movement, the broad movement that we're trying to build toward a country that where we see a restoration of individual rights and liberties and the country we've never seen yet.

Right.

Where everybody, the, the, the, the aspirational values of the US Constitution are a lived reality for everyone.

- Hmm.

We're talking with Cecillia Wang, national legal Director of the ACLU and hearing about how the organization is protecting civil rights and liberties.

Of course, we'd love to hear from you.

The ACLU is involved in so many types of litigation across the board.

What are you interested in hearing about, getting legal updates on?

What efforts would you like to see the ACLU undertake when it comes to protecting rights and liberties?

You can give us a call.

The number is 8 6 6 7 3 3 6 7 8 6.

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We're KQED Forum.

Let's talk a little bit about one.

You know, we're gonna get into a bunch of different topic areas.

Let's just talk about the National Guard, you know, deployed in cities across the country.

You know, federal judge declared the deployment in DC not legal, deployment in Oregon got enjoined.

It sort of seems on one level Trump administration's not winning in the courts, but also they keep going into new cities.

So like what's happening?

- So this is one of the key pillars of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump's shock and awe strategy, right?

They're turning the military National Guard troops against US communities.

And this is something, by the way, that the founders of our country were very concerned about.

And it's why we have this long history and tradition in the United States that the president cannot use military troops, National Guard troops, again- for domestic law enforcement.

And again, this is deliberately done to terrorize US communities.

I think the interesting thing you've seen is that you mentioned some of the litigation that both the cities and the states, Illinois and Chicago, Los Angeles and California, Portland and Oregon, Washington, DC, all of these localities and states have sued the federal government in order to try to stop the federalization of their National Guard and to stop the deployment of the National Guard in their cities.

And what you see in the litigation, what we pointed out in our ACLU amicus brief in the pending emergency application of the Supreme Court, is that once again, as I said, the president is claiming that the courts have no business reviewing his factual assertions in support of the deployment of the National Guard.

And what you also see in the briefs by the state of Illinois, for example, and city of Chicago, is it's like you're reading an alternative universe when you look at the president's factual assertions, right?

He is fabricating an excuse to send out the National Guard when in fact protesters have been peaceful.

Any unlawful activity around the protests was quickly and adequately responded to by local police.

And the president has made up a story about the protests claiming violent protests, what they're totally counterfactual - Hmm.

- And goes into court and defends what he's done on that basis.

And I think it's really important to note that if you look at the judges, the federal judges across all these cases who have ruled against the government, they are Republican and Democrat, Democrat appointed judges, including Trump appointees.

- We're talking with Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU.

We'll be back with more right after the break.

Welcome back to forum Alexis Madrigal here with Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU.

We're talking about how the organization is protecting civil rights and liberties under threat by the Trump administration.

And of course, we're taking your calls and your comments as well about what you'd like to see the ACLU undertake or get updates on the various legal issues that are going on right now.

The number is (866) 733-6786, the emails forum@kqed.org.

Let's bring in Bill in San Francisco.

Welcome Bill.

- Hi, good morning.

First off, I wanted to thank your guest for all the hard work they do, just fully support ACLU and, you know, working to, for the best intentions for core values in America.

But my question actually pertains to what we know from the past conservatives stack the court Supreme Court, and many of the federal judges.

And that's the, they've seen the fruits of that labor.

I'm interested in what the ACLU's long game is in a similar sense for helping to balance back out the, on the judicial side since really the buck stops there, especially at the Supreme Court.

Thank you.

- Thanks so much, Bill.

You know, you referenced the hope, which is that no matter who appointed the judge, they would rule on the basis of, of the law, but of course not everyone has faith in that.

What's your, what's your position on this?

- So thanks for the question, Bill.

So the first thing I'd say is, look, I, we can't sugarcoat the fact that the Supreme Court now has a six-three conservative majority that is hostile on many civil rights and civil liberties issues that we care deeply about.

But I would say three things.

The first is the Supreme Court of the United States hears about 50 cases on its merits docket every term.

And there are hundreds of thousands of cases that are brought in the lower courts.

- Hmm.

- So the ACLU, for example, just in our cases against Trump in a second term, as Alexis said, we've filed about 111, over a hundred lawsuits in federal courts.

And where we've already gotten to the point of asking the lower federal courts for some kind of remedy for people who are harmed by Trump policies, we've won about 80% of the time.

And the Supreme Court's only gonna hear a handful of those cases ultimately.

So there are lots of courts, we haven't even talked about state courts.

We have a state court strategy with a new state Supreme Court initiative that is looking at a strategy of going into state courts in order to build out state constitutional defenses for civil rights and civil liberties that are totally independent and parallel to the federal court system.

Second thing is do not assume that we are a lost cause in the Supreme Court.

Last term, we won a nine zero victory in an ACLU case where the ACLU represented the National Rifle Association and an important First Amendment case against New York State financial regulators who were discriminating against the NRA because of their viewpoint and because of their gun lobbying activities.

And that, that precedent from NRA versus Vullo, nine zero decision by the Supreme Court is now giving us arguments to try to block Trump from censoring people.

So that's second we can still win in the Supreme Court.

We won two major victories, some of the few victories on the Supreme Court's emergency docket against the Trump administration in our cases, trying to block Donald Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in order to deport Venezuelans to this gulag in El Salvador.

The Supreme Court gave us two important victories there.

And the third thing I would say is, you know, back to what we were talking about earlier, Alexis litigation is really part one tool among many.

And we are seeing judges as, as Trump gets more and more extreme and lawless in his policies and his actions against people around the country, you see the vast majority of Americans disagreeing with him.

And that ultimately will build the political momentum that's going to ensure that we don't elect presidents or mayors or governors or legislators at the state or federal level who are going to implement these kinds of cruel policies.

And we'll also see the judiciary again, acting in its constitutional role of serving as a check on these unlawful actions by the exec, the executive.

- You know, one of the, I I guess it wasn't a shock because it was part of the kind of rumblings ahead of the election, but one of the things that I, I didn't really anticipate seeing in, in my life at least, was kind of a, a possible rollback of birthright citizenship.

Can you just line out for me kind of the, the legal status of birthright citizenship?

Like where did it come from and sort of where are the attacks on it coming from?

- Sure.

So birthright citizenship is really uniquely Anglo-American value.

The United States has always had, you know, kind of hewed to this British idea of you solely, which is Latin for your, your birthright citizenship versus you get your citizenship from your parents, right?

In the United States from the founding, we had this idea, but of course we had slavery.

And so birthright citizenship as we know it now, came at the end of the Civil War when Congress was debating and then ratified the 14th Amendment as one of the reconstruction amendments.

The question on the table initially was, do formerly enslaved African Americans have equal citizenship rights?

Well, of course, the point of the 14th amendment's first line establishing birthright citizenship was to provide full citizenship rights for formerly enslaved African Americans.

But, but in addition, Congress in debating the 14th Amendment specifically ask themselves, does this mean that as they put it in the parlance of the day, does this mean that the children of Chinese and gypsies would also have birthright citizenship?

That was debated specifically by Congress.

And the answer was, yes, those who were opposed to the 14th Amendment and those who were for the 14th Amendment, all agreed birthright citizenship applied to everyone regardless of race and ethnicity.

If you're born in the country, you're a citizen of the country.

So the 14th Amendment is ratified in 1868, and then this is where the story becomes local for those of us in the Bay Area in 1898.

So 30 years later, the Supreme Court takes up the case of Wong Kim Ark Wong Kim Ark is a Chinese American, a man who was born to Chinese immigrant parents here in San Francisco.

And Wong Kim Ark goes back to China to visit family.

He comes back at the port of entry here in San Francisco, and the government, just like Donald Trump today, says Wong Kim Ark is not a citizen by birth because his parents were immigrants.

And the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship clause didn't apply to Chinese people.

And the Supreme Court rejected the government's arguments and established in 1898, in the case of Wong Kim Ark San Franciscan great San Franciscan, that regardless of your race, regardless of your parents' immigration status or ancestry, you're an American citizen.

Congress then codifies that vision of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment in 1940, again in 1952.

That's where birthright citizenship comes from.

So, - So how could anyone argue again?

I mean, you know, it seems like if there is such a thing as precedent and that matters, that seems pretty established.

- It is very established and, you know, I have to say Donald Trump, there have been, you know, I'll, I won't, I won't sugarcoat this.

Donald Trump's immigration policies are blatantly white nationalist, right?

And part of the restrictionist immigration activism for the last several years, maybe going back the last 20 years, this idea of attacking birthright citizenship has kind of bubbled up to the surface in those circles.

You know, time and again over the last, you know, since I've been a lawyer the last 30 years, and now that Donald Trump has become really unhinged in his second term, he went and took a run for this on Inauguration day, among the dozens of executive orders that he issued, you know, attacking individual rights and liberties, he comes out with his executive order that has his own view of the 14th Amendment, contrary to the Supreme Court's 1898 precedent and Wong Kim Ark contrary to the statute that was enacted by Congress.

And he says he reads birthright citizenship a different way.

And despite Congress debating this specifically in ratifying the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump thinks it only applied to formerly enslaved African Americans.

And every single federal court there have been states, including California, Washington, and New Jersey, and many others who went and sued over this because they're harmed by the birthright citizenship executive order individuals like our clients, civil rights organizations and community organizations like our clients.

There were, you know, so many cases around the country challenging the birthright citizenship executive order.

Every single judge to have considered this question has ruled against Donald Trump.

And so now he is trying to get the Supreme Court to take the issue up.

- And are they going to?

- Well, we'll see the court.

We know that the court discussed the President's CERT petition asking the court to review the case on Friday.

And so on Monday, we were waiting to see if the court was going to accept the case for review, and there was no word.

So we'll be watching again next Monday to see if the court has granted cert.

- I mean, would you be worried, - I am actually very confident about the issue of birthright citizenship.

I think this is one where the president ultimately will lose, including in the Supreme Court.

The precedent is just too clear, and it's just a bridge too far, I think for, for anyone.

- Hmm.

Let's bring in another call.

Let's bring in Colin and Raleigh.

Welcome.

- Good morning.

The California legislature passed a bill called AB 715, and the governor signed the bill.

I understand that the ACLU objected to the bill on the grounds that it could shield speech in the classroom, for example, presenting accurate information regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people in 1948, the Nakba, which could be deemed antisemitic under the bill, and potentially expose teachers to disciplinary action.

What actions is the ACLU taking to challenge this new state law?

And I'd like to know if the ACLU would consider the democratic governor and democratic legislature to be copying the Trump administration and seeking to suppress protected speech criticizing Israel.

- I appreciate that question, Colin.

Do you, are you familiar with the case?

- I'm actually not familiar with that particular bill, but I - like a state chapter that came out.

Yeah, it probably is the ACLU California affiliates who came out and took a position on it.

I will say at a more general level, that we really have seen both the federal government and state governments around the country, you know, trying to suppress protected speech around the issue of Israel-Palestine.

And, you know, we see the ways in which if you don't stand up for principle, regardless of what you personally think about Israel and Palestine, you're gonna see an erosion of everybody's freedom of speech.

And that's why we stood up, for example, in support of several non-citizens who were targeted for detention and deportation charges based on their first amendment protected speech on the issue of Palestinian human rights.

So we represented, for example, of Mahmoud Khalil, and were successful in getting all of those clients out of detention, out of immigration detention because they were being targeted based on their speech.

In the case of our client, Rümeysa Öztürk, for, she was detained by ICE.

- This was the Tufts student, - The Tufts graduate student who was charged with deportation and detained for seven weeks, transported from Boston to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, and detained in deplorable conditions for seven weeks because she wrote an op-ed in support of Palestinian rights in the Tufts student newspaper.

- A quite milquetoast one, I would even say having read it.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the particular California legislation, but I think it's really important that, you know, when we, when we get to these issues that are controversial, that are, raise people's emotions on all sides, that we really take a dispassionate look at the principle involved and stand up for freedom of speech and for academic freedom.

Hmm.

- Another listener writes, Project 2025 targets the foundations of American Civil Liberties threatening abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, and the independence of the Justice Department.

Given this existential threat, the ACLU is employing a multi-front defense, which single legal or legislative battle is most critical to block Project 2025's immediate impact?

And how does the ACLU intend to win that fight before these plans become policy?

- Well, it's really hard to pick because Project 2025 is, yeah, so all encompassing, right?

There's, it's, it's an all out attack on LGBTQ rights, on abortion rights, on immigrants.

And I said, as I said, I think there's a, the thread that ties all of this together is number one, an attack on, again, politically vulnerable minority groups, transgender youth, right?

Piling on to take away healthcare from teenagers who are transgender around this country.

And to discriminate against people.

You know, estimates are that transgender folks are 1% of the US population, and yet you saw this, you know, thousands of state bills being filed just to pile on to transgender Americans.

So I think that's a really important one.

I think disability rights is another important one.

And I think, again, academic freedom, the, the whole host of First Amendment freedoms, freedom of the press, freedom to protest, academic freedom, legal advocacy, advocacy of other kinds, all of those things.

President Trump and Project 2025's authors know full well that the key to a flourishing democracy is First Amendment rights.

And that's why they're so intent on shutting them down.

So, you know, all the cases that we have filed, you know, I, I could tick off a few of the victories we've had birthright citizenship, the illegal invocation of the Alien Enemies Act on the First Amendment front.

We've successfully blocked the defunding of educational institutions based on their engagement with materials that the president deems just favored, like so-called diversity, equity and inclusion measures, gender ideology as, as the president says, the censorship and defunding of arts organizations by the National Endowment of the Arts.

We've also successfully blocked their defunding efforts.

We've blocked the take downs of scientific research papers from a government hosted website called PS Net, where literally medical research papers were taken down because they mentioned the terms "Covid vaccine hesitancy," right?

So it's not just about DEI.

Yeah.

And not just about gender, it's about COVID, it's about vaccines.

We've, you know, across the board, really gone after all of these Project 2025 inspired policies of the second Trump administration.

And I can't really pick out one of them.

And I, I have to say, it's also really important that it's not just the ACLU that is bringing these lawsuits, and that's advocating, you know, in the, with the federal government and with state and local governments around the country, there's a real groundswell of, of people who increasingly are harmed by the President's policies.

There is something for everyone.

The longer we go through the second Trump term, the more he's attacking Americans across the board.

And so it really is critical for us to look to tactics not only in courts, but of mobilizing Americans to oppose what the President is doing.

And again, to build toward the country that has a policies that, that respect civil rights and civil liberties.

- Civil rights rule of law.

We're talking with Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU here, and how the organization is protecting civil rights and liberties in the courts.

We'd love to take your calls too, your questions about things that are going on.

You want to hear explained, (866) 733-6786.

That's (866) 733-6786. forum@kqed.org.

We'll be back with more right after the break.

Welcome back to Forum, Alexis Madrigal here with Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU.

We're gonna try and get to more of your calls and comments in this section of the show.

Let's start with Mark in San Francisco.

Welcome, Mark.

- Hi, thanks for taking my call.

I kind of wanted to ask about Stephen Miller.

We hear, you know, that a lot.

I listened to a lot of the talks about, and then we named Trump.

We named Bannon, but not enough.

I think about the role Stephen Miller is has in our government now, and how we, is there any legal, I think it's like malpractice or breach of contract if the oath to protect the Constitution, what this man is doing and the influence he has without any qualifications in our government.

- Hmm.

Yeah.

Appreciate your perspective there, Mark.

Do you wanna say anything about this?

- Yeah, you know, I think Stephen Miller definitely is, you know, the, the mastermind behind a lot of the president's immigration policies.

But, you know, it's, it, it, he's really subverted the entire, you know, apparatus of the federal government to attack not only immigrants, but everyone's civil rights and civil liberties.

The hollowing out of the Department of Education, you know, the subverting of, - Gosh, I'd even like, sort of forgotten.

That's been sort of lower down in the headlines, you know?

- Yeah.

There, there's so many ways in which, and, you know, we're, these are not issues that we're litigating, but the ways that the federal government has now turned against the people and against constitutional rights is something that I, I think Mark is right to call out.

And, you know, the, it goes beyond the role of any one individual federal government official.

Of course, it really is.

They came in with a, with a concerted plan for attacking people's individual rights and liberties.

And it's something that we all need to ultimately use our voting power to fix.

- Yeah.

You know, this is an interesting question from a listener on Discord, in part because this one kind of cuts across political lines in different ways, Listener writes, could you talk about Flock camera surveillance and their sharing of data between police departments and federal immigration forces?

Maybe you could explain how it works.

Cities sign up for Flock to help solve crimes, but then the data is shared beyond this.

And one of the reasons why I wanted to bring this one is it's, it kind of goes to some of the principles at play, right?

Like, people have a very pragmatic concern about crime in cities and there's these different surveillance tools that cities can deploy.

But then how does that tie into some of these broader issues that you're thinking about?

- Absolutely.

What a great question.

So, you know, use of technology, or I should say abuse of technology that's being marketed and sold by these private tech companies, that, that in ways that hurt people's fundamental civil liberties is something we're very concerned about and is a major priority for us in our advocacy efforts, including against the use of Flock cameras as the, the caller is, is talking about.

And I think the broader principle is, as you said, Alexis, when someone comes at you, whether it's a private tech company trying to sell some product to your local police department or sheriff's department, or it's a government official telling you, we need to do this to keep you safe, you should really be on red alert.

Because time and again, as we've seen with President Trump, both during his first term and now during his second term, have abused the notion and kind of used fearmongering and concerns about crime in order to develop surveillance technologies that hurt everyone's civil rights and civil liberties.

And, you know, we've shown that the use of face recognition for law enforcement, you know, discriminates against people of color because, you know, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.

And so when you have these tech, you know, these technology tools, technology products that, you know, and we've gotten used to the idea, you know, when you go through TSA for example, they are now using face recognition instead of showing your ID.

You know, I always decline to do that because even though, you know, the government has my face already, I'm on social media and actually sign up for global entry.

These are ways in which ultimately, you know, they're exploiting people's desire.

Everyone wants to be safe, everyone wants not to be the victim of a crime.

But when the government or tech companies or you know, anyone who has a a financial interest is trying to exploit the idea of safety in order to surveil Americans who are trying to go about their daily lives, I think you need to really be on high alert.

Yeah.

- Well, and there's another piece of that question too, which is just about that once data is created inside the government for one purpose, it's hard to guarantee that it won't be used for another.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- I mean, one example you see of this is, you know, the Trump administration has tried to enlist and I think successfully has enlisted the IRS in doing immigration enforcement.

That's actually illegal.

Congress realized the problem with opening up tax records for other purposes long ago.

And therefore past laws that say, look, IRS records are just for tax purposes because the government has an interest in having everyone pay taxes, - Right.

- People who are undocumented immigrants pay taxes.

Guess what?

They pay taxes.

And so the government always is drawn, drawn this red line around tax records and says, we're not gonna let law enforcement get into those.

And we've got strong policy reasons for doing that.

And you see not withstanding that law, the Trump administration breaking through that seal in ways that are really dangerous.

We filed a, a FOIA request, Freedom of of Information Act request, and now are bringing a lawsuit to enforce that FOIA request.

Looking at the ways that DOGE, remember DOGE?

- I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Was, you know, getting into people's social security records, you know, and medical records, those things, you know, they are walls built around those vast bodies of data that are in the government's hands for a reason.

And it's extremely dangerous for the government to break down those walls.

- I mean, one of the things that we have seen is this presidential power expanding and expanding, expanding, especially, you know, post, post 9/11, as you noted, let's just say there's a different president in the in office next.

I mean, do you think that those powers will go away or will that just pass into the hands of whoever is the next president?

Whether it's, you know, JD Vance or you know, a Democrat.

- I think it's really incumbent on the American people, people who care about civil rights and civil liberties to demand that Congress enact laws that restrain executive power.

You know, unfortunately it didn't happen at the end of the first Trump administration.

To give it one example, Donald Trump instituted his Muslim ban during the first Trump administration using a statute called Section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

That statute purported to give the president broad powers to suspend the entry of non-citizens whenever the president deems it in the national interest.

And Donald Trump, of course, abused that statute that historically had been used to borrow or suspend the entry of small groups of non-citizens.

For example, you know, people who belong to a certain political party in this foreign country who were associated with human rights abuses, that sort of thing.

And Donald Trump used it to, to blatantly discriminate on the basis of religion, the entry of everyone from certain predominantly Muslim countries.

And after, of course, finally the Supreme Court, after all the federal, lower federal courts had struck down the Muslim ban, the Supreme Court permitted it to go forward.

And so, you know, those of us who had litigated against the Muslim ban were saying to Congress, you need to amend Section 212 F of the Immigration and Nationality Act to prevent its abuse in the future.

That did not happen.

- Hmm.

- And so I think, you know, we really need to take a wholesale look at all the ways in which President Trump, like other presidents before him, have abused executive authority, especially under the guise of national security or national emergency, and close up those loopholes so that they can't be abused in the future.

- It just feels like Congress, though, over the last, however many, maybe a couple decades, has just passed fewer and fewer laws that it has abandoned its role that had traditionally played for such a long time.

Do you have any hope that there would be an emerging kind of do something coalition in Congress?

- I hope so, and I think that, you know, the ACLU is non-partisan, we don't engage in endorsing or opposing candidates for political office.

But if you look at the outcome of the most recent election earlier this month, I think there are signs that voters want outcomes.

They want elected officials, and they want policies enacted that support civil rights and civil liberties that are common sense, that are fair, that promote equality.

And I, I'm hopeful that one of the silver linings of the second Trump administration will be that you'll see millions and millions of Americans motivated and mobilized to demand those changes.

- Listener Kurt writes in to say, I'm a special education teacher here in the Bay Area, and I'm deeply concerned with the future funding of the individuals with Disabilities Education Act idea, which Project 2025 is proposing to either eliminate or direct to different areas.

How concerned are you about what might happen to IDEA and how might ACLU help fight this possible attack?

- So I share the concern that Kurt is expressing here, and it's one of the reasons why earlier in the hour I said that one of the issues I'm most concerned about is disability rights.

The ACLU Disability Rights Project, which is part of our national legal department, has brought a lawsuit that challenges some of these anti so-called anti DEI.

And there's another letter, DEIA policies that come out of Project 2025 and come out of the Trump administration and the "A" stands for accessibility.

And so there are many ways in which the focus has been on racial diversity initiatives.

And let's be clear what the president really is going after there when he says he's going after DEI is longstanding civil rights protections for racial minorities, but he also is going after civil rights protections in the form of access for people with disabilities.

So I, I, that is a concern that we have.

It's something that we are litigating and something that I think it's important for Americans to be aware of.

Yeah.

Many of us are affected or, or benefit from laws protecting people with disabilities and protecting access for people with disabilities.

And if we don't now, we, we may someday in our lives, most likely, - You know, this is in the early part of the Trump administration, you know, they're filing all these, they're, they're going after law firms, they're going after universities, they're going after, you know, civil society organizations like, you know, NPR.

Do you think that the tide has turned, you know, it did feel like there was a moment where speech was chilled and the university president seemed like they were running scared and all these things were happening.

But over the last, I don't know, couple of months maybe, because there has been time for legal cases to play out and some law firms have won, some universities have won, you know, do you think that the, the chilling effect that seemed to be descending upon the US has warmed up a little?

What do you think?

- Yes, I do.

I do think the tide has started to turn, you know, Donald Trump, let's talk about the law firms.

Donald Trump issued six executive orders, at least six executive orders targeting law firms.

These are corporate law firms, okay?

They're not radicals, they're not the ACLU or Planned Parenthood.

These were corporate law firms for representing causes or clients disfavored by Donald Trump.

Right?

In one case, the law firm Jenner & Block was targeted, and he says this in the executive order, because they had co-counseled as pro bono work of the law firm, they'd co-counseled cases, challenging anti-trans gender state laws with the ACLU and other civil rights organizations.

So the first two orders that were issued were against two firms that were like, they, they, he was still working out, the president was still working out the form of these, these attacks on law firms.

The third one was against a firm called Perkins Coie.

And then he issued three more against three other law firms, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey.

And he basically was sanctioning these law firms, including things as petty and consequential, as blocking lawyers in those firms from entering federal government buildings, - Making it impossible for them to do their job.

- Exactly right.

And so the ACLU, when Perkins Coie had that executive order issued against them, Perkins was the first law firm to fight back.

And, you know, the ACLU stepped up.

We, I reached out to a friend who's a partner at Perkins Coie and said, and I said, how can we support you?

I'd like to file an amicus brief.

We filed a right left cross ideological amicus brief on behalf of civil liberties organizations, including conservative identified organizations, to stand up and say what the president is doing in attacking these law firms is not only violating their first amendment rights to engage in legal advocacy and represent whoever and whatever cause they want, but also interfering with separation of powers.

And the president here knew exactly what he was doing.

He knew that a huge part of the checks and balances against his unlawful policies will come in the form of law firms, co-counseling with civil rights organizations to file lawsuits to stop him.

And this was his way of chilling those private law firms from engaging in the pro bono work they always had done.

And initially, it will be no surprise that that's what the president set out to do.

And that's what happened.

We saw law firms, and this was widely reported in the press, law firms kind of stepping back, you know, first Trump term, we were inundated by offers of pro bono help From lawyer private firms around the country.

We didn't see that this time.

And it's because Donald Trump did that deliberately.

But we have turned the corner because those four firms that I mentioned, first Perkins Coie and three others went into court and challenged Donald Trump and all of them won.

- Mm.

- And so you, and then you see initially Columbia University, - Right.

- Basically Harvard fights back, and then Harvard fights fights back, critical right?

Harvard fights back, and then we see the tides starting to turn.

We see people noticing that when you resist, you win.

It's not just about lawsuits.

When the president, you know, is part of his really disturbing attacks on freedom of the press, you know, and an artistic freedom, you know, criticizes Jimmy Kimmel.

- Right.

- And calls for Jimmy Kimmel to be canceled.

And CBS cancels.

Jimmy Kimmel, the public outcry led to his show being reinstated after only a few days.

- Yeah.

- And so we, the people have the power and you know, lawyers have power to go and file lawsuits and the people have the power to make their views known.

- Yeah.

We have been talking with Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU, about that organization's work defending civil rights and liberties.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- It's a real pleasure, Alexis.

Thank you.

- The nine o'clock hour of Forum is produced by Grace Won, Blanca Torres, Jennifer Ng and Francesca Fenzi and Kyana Moghadam.

Our interns are Jessie Fisher and Joy Diamond.

Marlena Jackson-Retondo is our engagement producer.

Judy Campbell is the lead producer, Danny Bringer and Katherine Monahan are our engineers.

Katie Sprenger is not only the operations manager of KQED podcast, she's also our boss and just such a wonderful person.

Our editor in chief is Ethan Toven-Lindsey.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Stay tuned for another hour of Forum ahead with Mina Kim.