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For Immediate Release
April, 25 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Reynolds Graves: RGraves@LawyersCommittee.org
National Civil Rights Organization Calls for Facebook to Immediately Remove Militia Group Postings Holding Migrants Hostage
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a demand letter to Facebook yesterday calling for the company to remove various videos and content posted by members of the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), an extremist militia group that has a history of illegally holding people hostage at the New Mexico border. The group's videos and activities violate a number of provisions in Facebook's Community Standards. In addition, the letter notes that the videos and other content raise serious concerns that UCP may have violated both federal and state law.
WASHINGTON
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a demand letter to Facebook yesterday calling for the company to remove various videos and content posted by members of the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), an extremist militia group that has a history of illegally holding people hostage at the New Mexico border. The group's videos and activities violate a number of provisions in Facebook's Community Standards. In addition, the letter notes that the videos and other content raise serious concerns that UCP may have violated both federal and state law.
UCP's videos show members of the militia, dressed in military uniform, holding people at gunpoint. Because these videos include content showing possible assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment, among other illegal acts, the group alleges that UCP is in violation of Facebook's Community Standards, which prohibits "content depicting ... criminal acts" including "acts of physical harm committed against people." The letter also identifies several other provisions of Facebook's Community Standards which the UCP content may violate, including provisions prohibiting depictions of human trafficking, violent or graphic content, and content containing child abuse.
The UCP militia group has used Facebook to secure support and to promote the group's fundraising activities at a rapid pace.
"We believe Facebook has a duty to act and remove content posted by UCP that violates the company's community standards," said Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "The United Constitutional Patriots have engaged in illegal activities, including rounding up and restraining hundreds of people - including babies and young children - at gunpoint. UCP should not be allowed to use Facebook's platform to gain support for their illegal actions."
The letter is available here.
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
(202) 662-8600LATEST NEWS
Third Death Tied to Texas Abortion Ban as 'Stigma and Fear' Disrupt Miscarriage Care
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Friends and family of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two in Houston, were stunned last year to learn that she had died in a hospital after suffering a miscarriage when she was 11 weeks pregnant—and medical experts who spoke to the investigative outlet ProPublicaon Monday had the same reaction.
"All she needed was a [dilation and curettage]," one friend told Ngumezi's grieving husband, Hope Ngumezi, referring to a standard procedure which is often given to pregnant patients who have first-trimester miscarriages. Commonly called a D&C, it is also diagnose or treat other health conditions and provide abortion care.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at University of California, San Francisco, toldProPublica that "at every point" of Ngumezi's visit to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, a hospital outside Houston, medical providers' response to her case was "kind of shocking."
"She is having significant blood loss and the physician didn't move toward aspiration," Grossman told ProPublica.
Like at least two other Texas women—Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica—Ngumezi's death in June 2023 was the result of the abortion ban that went into effect in Texas in 2022, according to medical experts who reviewed her case.
Ngumezi arrived at the hospital on June 11, 2023 after experiencing heavy bleeding 11 weeks into her pregnancy with her third child. Doctors noted that Ngumezi had a blood-clotting disorder and that she was experiencing "significant bleeding" with large clots.
"Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal."
An ultrasound showed a "sac-like structure," but no fetus or cardiac activity were detected, indicating that she was having a miscarriage.
But instead of providing a D&C, in which a small tube is inserted into the uterus to gently remove any remaining fetal tissue, doctors took a "wait-and-see approach [that] has become more common under abortion bans," according to the medical experts who spoke to ProPublica.
Dr. Gabrielle Taper, who has worked as an OB-GYN in Austin, told ProPublica that since Texas' abortion ban went into effect in 2022—two months after the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—there has been "much more hesitation [among doctors] about: When can we intervene, do we have enough evidence to say this is a miscarriage, how long are we going to wait, what will we use to feel definitive?"
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Some critics who support abortion bans have dismissed Ngumezi's case—and that of other women who have died because of the laws—as the result of medical malpractice that had nothing to do with recently passed state laws. They claim Texas' law protects women who have miscarriages.
But ProPublica noted that Ngumezi had a similar case to one described on social media by podcast host Ryan Hamilton earlier this year. Hamilton's wife experienced bleeding while miscarrying at 13 weeks, and was prescribed misoprostol and sent home after an ultrasound at Surepoint Emergency Center Stephenville showed no fetal cardiac activity. The bleeding got worse, but an emergency doctor told the couple they couldn't provide a D&C because of "the current stance" in Texas.
Greer Donley, a law professor at University of Pittsburgh, said that "the antiabortion movement wants us to blame the doctors and sometimes that is warranted. But abortion bans are the ultimate cause of this harm."
"When life in prison is the penalty for violating a ban, doctors will understandably be risk averse. And that chill in care will cause death," said Donley.
ProPublica reported that "performing a D&C attracts more attention from colleagues, creating a higher barrier in a state where abortion is illegal."
Doctors, added Goulding, "have to convince everyone that it is legal and won't put them at risk [of prosecution]."
In Ngumezi's case, the bleeding continued after she took misoprostol, and her heart stopped three hours later—a "preventable" death, according to the experts.
"The only reason" Ngumezi died, said Reproductive Justice for All, is that Republican politicians including President-elect Donald Trump helped put Texas' abortion ban in place.
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Heavy airstrikes have also been reported in southern Lebanon, including in the town of Naqoura where the U.N. peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, is based.
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ATF's analysis, released Monday, shows that the combined wealth of Trump's richest nominees and transition team members—including the president-elect and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the vice president-elect—is over $313 billion. By comparison, the combined net worth of President Joe Biden's Cabinet is an estimated $118 million.
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