February, 05 2020, 11:00pm EDT
With Surge in Youth Vote and 92% of Caucus-goers Supporting the Green New Deal, Sunrise Movement Helps Deliver Sanders Win in Iowa
Today, after a four-day delay in the release of caucus results, Bernie Sanders is declaring victory in the Iowa Caucus after the Iowa Democratic Party's results show him winning a majority of votes on the first and second alignment. This victory comes in the first major contest of the 2020 presidential Democratic primary, showcasing the dynamism of Sanders' youth voting base and the overwhelming popularity of the Green New Deal as a governing agenda.
Des Moines, IA
Today, after a four-day delay in the release of caucus results, Bernie Sanders is declaring victory in the Iowa Caucus after the Iowa Democratic Party's results show him winning a majority of votes on the first and second alignment. This victory comes in the first major contest of the 2020 presidential Democratic primary, showcasing the dynamism of Sanders' youth voting base and the overwhelming popularity of the Green New Deal as a governing agenda. With 97% of precincts reporting, the results as of now show a Sanders victory with a lead of nearly 6,000 votes in the first alignment and over 2,500 in the final alignment. With the margin of victory in the final alignment being under 3,000, and Sunrise Movement getting over 7,000 young Iowan voters to pledge to caucus for a Green New Deal champion as a part of our intensive 6 month field program and national endorsement of Sanders, it's safe to say that our movement helped deliver the margin of victory for Sanders in this key race.
Iowa also saw an overall youth voter share increase of 33% from 2016 levels, with Sanders capturing 48% of the youth vote according to the Washington Post. Since the announcement of the Sunrise endorsement last month, the climate crisis rose to be the most popular issue along with healthcare for Iowan Democratic caucus-goers and the constiutency's support for the Green New Deal surged by 10 percentage points, reaching a record total of 92% according to the most recent polling by Data for Progress.
"Young people across Iowa turned out in historic numbers to show that our generation is the largest political force in this nation," Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash stated in a recap video of caucus night. "Our movement and our Iowa team quite literally shifted public opinion on the climate crisis -- bringing Iowan public support for the Green New Deal to an unprecedented majority and helping to push Green New Deal champion Bernie Sanders to the top of the race. If this many young people participated in the notoriously inaccessible and time-intensive Iowa caucuses, this could be a promising sign for even higher youth turnout in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday to bring Sanders more victories."
"The Democratic Party's intransparent delay in results matched with their decision to release partial results over an undisclosed timeline was completely unacceptable and undemocratic," Sunrise Movement Political Director Evan Weber said. "Young people already have an immense amount of distrust for the Democratic Party because we see the ways in which the establishment has consistently shut us and our issues out in favor of maintaining a broken status quo. Disasters like this throw fuel to the fire -- but we're channeling that fire into organizing thousands of young people in New Hampshire to generate historic youth turnout like we did in Iowa and deliver a mandate for a Green New Deal and a Bernie Sanders presidency."
In the final week before the caucus alone, Sunrise leaders across the country made over 18,000 calls to Iowans to get them to turn out for Bernie Sanders. Sunrise Iowa also partnered with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement to look beyond the caucus and this election cycle, bringing together community leaders to sketch out a motivating vision for what winning the Green New Deal would mean for Iowa -- as depicted in an animated video that premiered on the day of the caucus.
"Over the last 6 months, we've canvassed through sleet and snow and met thousands of young Iowans," Sunrise Movement Iowa organizer Mona Abhari, 23, said. "The team here has kept pushing through the doubts of the entire professional political class, and accomplished so much. If we're going to defeat Trump and win a Green New Deal, this has to just be the beginning. 2020 is going to be a pivotal year -- not just for our generation, but for every single generation that will follow us for centuries to come."
Senator Sanders made the Green New Deal a cornerstone of his campaign strategy in Iowa. In addition to investing millions into television and digital ad buys highlighting his Green New Deal platform and how it would transform Iowans lives, the campaign also held a series of prominent climate crisis town halls that spotlighted Sunrise Movement and progressive figures like Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, and more.
"Do not underestimate your power," Senator Sanders directed towards American youth in a tweet posted on the day of the caucus. "You will transform this country if you turn out to vote."
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
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US Lawyers Coalition Says Elite Firms Have Only One Choice: Capitulate to Trump—Or Fight Back
"These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession," says an open letter from legal groups.
Apr 23, 2025
In an open letter published Wednesday, amid the Trump administration's unprecedented scrutiny on Big Law, multiple legal groups are calling on elite American law firms to convene and coordinate a unified response to U.S. President Donald Trump's "unconstitutional actions" and "threats to the rule of law and system of justice."
The legal groups include the coalition Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), the coalition Lawyers Allied Under Rule of Law, and the Steady State—which, according to the executive director of LDAD, "formed in the first Trump term as a loose association that maintained a low internet profile because many members were in government," but has "become much more organized and active" in response to the president's Department of Government Efficiency.
The groups drew a distinction between the several elite law firms who in recent weeks have negotiated deals with the Trump administration either in response to punishments imposed via executive order or to avoid the prospect of an executive order, and law firms who have resisted the Trump administration's pressure.
The law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey have all filed suits challenging Trump's executive orders targeting them. All four have won initial relief in court.
According to the letter, more than 800 other firms, including 17 firms on the Am Law 200—a ranking of top law firms based on gross revenue—have joined amicus briefs in defense of the firms that have sued.
"Lawyers Defending American Democracy calls on the 170 undeclared Am Law 200 firms to avoid the path of those now notorious nine," the letter states.
"If you are one of these firms, you understand that the threatened executive edicts are not legal or enforceable. Rather, they are a tactic designed to enlist you in undermining the rule of law. Any concession by your prestigious firms only helps the administration intimidate the legal profession from challenging its actions," according to the legal groups.
The letter states that negotiating with the administration is futile in part because "there exists no reasonable terms for resolving this dispute."
The letter also points to the fact that all four courts that have heard the cases from firms challenging Trump "have held that the likelihood of these law firms succeeding on the merits is so great that they have taken the extraordinary step of issuing temporary restraining orders against the government’s enforcement." This is evidence, according to the letter, that negotiation is unnecessary.
"If you band together and agree to support one another, the White House strategy will collapse," the letter states. "These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession."
"We must fight because if lawyers don't stand up for the rule of law, who will? If we don't fight for the principles that we have devoted our professional lives to—and that make us a free society—those principles will be forever compromised," the letter concludes.
According to a statement from LDAD, the legal groups behind the letter collectively represent over 1,000 lawyers who who have worked as senior partners, judges, state attorneys general, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, as general counsel for major companies, and state bar presidents.
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Lawyers for Jailed Palestine Defender Mohsen Mahdawi Demand His Release
One attorney said that the former Columbia University organizer "sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech," while another reminded supporters that Mahdawi "has not been charged with any crime."
Apr 23, 2025
Attorneys for Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student organizer at Columbia University and permanent U.S. resident caught up in the Trump administration's crusade against Palestine defenders, argued in federal court Wednesday that their client was illegally arrested and detained for his constitutionally protected speech and should be immediately freed.
In what Mahdawi's legal team hailed as a "victory," U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended a temporary restraining order issued last week by Judge William Sessions III to prevent federal officials from transferring Mahdawi from Vermont, where he is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. Crawford also scheduled a new hearing for Mahdawi on April 30.
Addressing the nearly 100 letters submitted in support of Mahdawi, Crawford said that "no one has ever provided anything like that before," adding, "These were quite striking in geographic and philosophical breadth, including many members of the Jewish community."
Mahdawi, who is 34 years old and has been a green-card holder for a decade, was arrested on April 14 by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during an appointment for his citizenship test in Colchester, Vermont. He was steps away from naturalization; instead, federal agents attempted to force Mahdawi onto a plane bound for Louisiana, where other Palestine defenders are being held pending deportation proceedings.
Mahdawi's lawyers are seeking his immediate release.
"We ask this court to suspend this unlawful retaliation and slow the grave threat to free speech posed by his continued detainment by releasing Mr. Mahdawi on bail," his legal team said in a filing.
Luna Droubi, an attorney on the team, said after the hearing that "Mohsen Mahdawi sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech," Droubi added. "We intend on being back in one week's time to free Mohsen."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech."
Like the numerous other pro-Palestine activists arrested—critics say kidnapped—and detained by the Trump administration, the government concedes that Mahdawi committed no crime. However, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the secretary of state can expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to foreign policy interests.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that Mahdawi should be deported because letting him remain in the country "would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest."
Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have cited President Donald Trump's executive order ostensibly aimed at combating antisemitism and his edict authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza as justification for Mahdawi's arrest and detention.
However, Mahdawi has repeatedly condemned anti-Jewish hatred, including during a 2023 interview on CBS News' "60 Minutes" in which he asserted that "the fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
VTDiggerreported that hundreds of people gathered outside the Burlington, Vermont courthouse Wednesday to show support for Mahdawi and demand his release. Nora Rubinstein of Middletown Springs, Vermont said she was rallying in defense of "democracy and freedom" and to help the U.S. "return to the democratic principles this country was founded on."
"It's time to end the shredding of our democracy, the shredding of our Constitution," Rubinstein added.
On Monday, Mahdawi told U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who visited him behind bars, that "I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles of this country."
"The most important rights [are in] the Bill of Rights, which includes free speech on the top of these rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of having religion or not having religion at all," he added.
As Welch visited Mahdawi, Columbia University students, faculty, and alumni once again chained themselves to a fence to protest his detention and demand the release of not only Mahdawi but also of fellow Columbia activists and permanent U.S. residents Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung, as well as other student Palestine defenders including Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, and others.
On Tuesday, a delegation of Massachusetts Democrats—U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley—visited Khalil and Öztürk at the Louisiana ICE detention facility where they are being held. Markey accused the Trump administration of jailing the activists in Louisiana in a bid to have "the single most conservative circuit court of appeals in the United States of America" hear the case.
Mahdawi's lawyers said they believe their client will soon be free.
"We are very hopeful that he will be released," attorney Cyrus Mehta told supporters and media gathered outside the Burlington courthouse on Wednesday. "The judge wants to move quickly, and he realizes that this is a case of great importance for this country."
"What we're seeing here is unprecedented where they are so hell-bent on detaining students," Mehta added. "These are not hardened criminals. These are people who have not been charged with any crime, they have also not been charged under any of the other deportation provisions of the immigration act."
One of the attorneys read the crowd a statement from Mahdawi in which he said that "this hearing is part of the system of democracy" that "prevents a tyrant from having unchecked power."
"I am in prison," he added, "but I am not imprisoned."
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Amnesty to Kristi Noem: 'Stop Revoking Visas of Foreign Students'
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights."
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The global human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called on supporters of the United States' core constitutional rights to write to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that the Trump administration stop its campaign to strip foreign students of their right to be in the country for exercising their First Amendment freedoms.
As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accosted former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil, forced him into an unmarked vehicle, and took him to a detention center in Louisiana thousands of miles from his pregnant wife in March, the administration's attacks on international students have only intensified.
Seven identified students have had their visas revoked, while the administration is pushing to revoke the residency status of at least two students who protested the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza.
The White House is using a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to claim that certain students including Khalil pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy and should be deported.
"At least 1,300 additional students are known to have had their visas revoked," reads a letter template provided to supporters by Amnesty. "However, many of these students never received notice of the revocation, nor did they participate in any protest or expressive activity on campus. Some students may have been targeted due to having committed minor crimes such as traffic violations. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
Supporters who send the letter can urge Noem to "restore the visas and immigration status of these students and visitors, release all students from immigration detention, refrain from deporting any of them, and end the targeting of students based on their immigration statuses and for exercising their human rights."
"According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
As Common Dreams reported, President Donald Trump's attacks on foreign students' First Amendment rights and his threats to universities' funding if they don't comply with his policies aimed at rooting out criticism of U.S. policy in Israel and Palestine, which both Republican and Democratic politicians have claimed is synonymous with antisemitism, have pushed schools to notify hundreds of students that their visas were revoked.
Trump's attacks on international students have shocked several federal judges, and one judge in Georgia on Friday ordered ICE to restore the legal status of students whose visas were revoked due to DHS' termination of their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
DHS admitted in a court filing last week that it does not have the authority to change students' visa status via SEVIS.
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "whether due to their speech and protest activities or their country of origin, demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, due process, and to be free from discrimination."
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