newsletter 12/17/25

Meeting the Moment in 2025

At the end of 2024, we anticipated the challenges in the coming year and prepared to meet the moment.  With your support, we did exactly that:  We protected the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. We protected unaccompanied Guatemalan children from unlawful expulsion back to the country they fled.  We challenged DOGE’s efforts to dismantle a federal independent agency.  We sued DHS for rescinding its longstanding policy of not conducting immigration raids at places of worship.  We sued DHS again for rescinding temporary protected status for Afghans and Cameroonians.  We challenged state laws that violate constitutional rights.  We defended state laws and local policies consistent with constitutional rights.  We preserved legal victories in the lower courts by defeating efforts to have them reversed by the Supreme Court.  We consulted behind the scenes with local and state officials and members of Congress about the legal limits on the federalization and deployment of the National Guard.  And so much more, thanks to all of you.

Love wins! + Supreme Court Updates

• Ermold v. Davis:  In early November, we convinced the Supreme Court to deny former Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis’s petition seeking to overrule Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision recognizing marriage equality as a constitutional right.  Representing a same-sex couple whose marriage license was denied by Davis, our brief successfully argued that Obergefell is the law of the land and should not be reconsidered by the Court.  
• Fitzhugh v. Patton:  Later the same month, we persuaded the Court to deny review of a decision allowing a putative class of pretrial detainees to challenge their confinement even if the class representative gets released before the filing of a class certification motion.  Without the inherently transitory exception applied by the lower court, judicial review of unconstitutional conditions could be evaded.
• Wolford v. Lopez:  Today, as this newsletter hits your inboxes, we’re filing our Supreme Court brief (along with ICAP faculty director Neal Katyal and his team) defending Hawai‘i’s private property default law, which bars firearms on private property unless the owner has given consent either orally or in writing.  We’ve defended this common-sense law since it was first challenged in the district court, through the 9th Circuit upholding the law, and now in the Supreme Court, which will hear oral argument on January 20.

New Litigation

• Jolt v. Paxton:  Just when we thought this litigation was over, it’s back. In 2024, we filed suit on behalf of Jolt Initiative, a Latino civic engagement organization, after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an invasive request to examine Jolt’s voter registration records based on false allegations that it was registering non-citizens.  Instead of defending the legality of the request in court, Paxton withdrew the demand and agreed not to issue another request on the same matter.  But on the same day that case was closed, Paxton upped the ante, filing a civil “quo warranto” lawsuit in state court seeking to dissolve Jolt’s corporate charter and end its operations, based on the same unfounded allegations.  So we’re back in federal court, suing the state for its retaliatory actions in violation of Jolt’s First Amendment rights and the Voting Rights Act.  With the 2026 mid-terms on the horizon, stopping this kind of intimidation and retaliation is more important than ever.  
• Fonseca v. Barringer:  Like the protection of voter registration efforts, it’s equally important to protect the rights of journalists, on whose reporting we depend to hold our institutions accountable.  We’re proud to represent award-winning radio journalist April Fonseca, who was arrested and had her equipment seized while reporting on the clearance of a homeless encampment in a public park in Medford, Oregon.  The city’s decision to bar journalists from the park violated her First Amendment rights, and the arrest and seizure of her equipment violated her Fourth Amendment rights.
• ICAP is also committed to supporting the litigation of others:  In United States v. City of Boston, we represented 27 cities, counties, and elected officials in support of the City of Boston’s motion to dismiss the Trump administration’s challenge to the Boston Trust Act, a law that protects public safety and trust in the community by limiting local law enforcement cooperation in federal immigration enforcement.  And in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, ICAP represented two cities and a county in support of a federal law that imposes taxation and registration requirements on particularly dangerous weapons like machine guns and short-barreled shotguns that are susceptible to criminal misuse.

Public Education

In the last quarter of the year, the ICAP team has continued to prioritize public education on a wide range of issue areas.  ICAP Senior Counsel Bill Powell spoke on a panel at Fordham Law, focused on the story of Wong Kim Ark, the American man of Chinese descent who took his case to the Supreme Court to confirm birthright citizenship as the law of the land in 1898.

In a New York Times op-ed, ICAP Executive Director Mary McCord and her Main Justice podcast co-host Andrew Weissmann wrote about how the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision paved the way for political prosecutions.  And for the second time this year, McCord was the voice behind the New York Times Quote of the Day, this time in an article about the Department of Justice repeatedly subordinating its independence to the will of the president: “There is no pretense of evenhanded justice. That core principle is gone.” Further proving Mary’s point, ICAP Legal Director Rupa Bhattacharyya offered analysis on the potential misuse of the Judgment Fund to pay settlements to the president and his allies in an article in The Hill, and wrote in the Justice Connection substack about what the Department of Justice should do with the president’s $230 million demand: “Nothing.”  Reaching another audience,  ICAP Supreme Court Director Kelsi Corkran spoke at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention in defense of meaningful judicial review of executive branch action. 

We look forward to sharing more news in 2026 about how ICAP is safeguarding individual rights, supporting our elected officials and law enforcement in protecting public safety, providing timely and accurate information to the public, and holding our governmental institutions to the highest standard of integrity and accountability.  We hope that all of our followers have a safe and happy holiday season and if you haven’t made a gift to ICAP this year, we hope you’ll consider it before year’s end.