June 27, 2018
GOVERNMENT CRITICISED FOR SLOW PROGRESS SECURING POST-BREXIT AVIATION DEAL
‘The negotiators in Brussels have been warming up on the pitch for two years, and we’re still in the changing room,’ said ABTA’s chief executive
SIMON CALDER TRAVEL CORRESPONDENT
A leading travel industry figure has slammed the “lack of clarity and progress” in Brexit negotiations.
Mark Tanzer, the chief executive of ABTA, the UK travel trade association for tour operators and travel agents, told a conference in London: “A year ago, I set out a number of areas in which we needed to see urgent progress – aviation access, movement of key workers, VAT and consumer rights.
What happens to your European Health Insurance Card after Brexit?
“Twelve months on, and we still don’t have any clarity on any of these.”
He was particular critical of the lack of progress on aviation access. Currently British passengers have access to a wider range of flights than any other European country, as a result of the “open skies” agreement across the EU.
A deal between Brussels and Washington also governs flights between the UK and US.
Immediately after the EU referendum result two years ago, Britain’s travel industry urged immediate action to safeguard aviation access. Yet as The Independent reported, the key role of “Head of Aviation EU Exit Negotiations” has only just been advertised.
Mr Tanzer said of EU negotiators in Brussels: “They’ve been warming up on the pitch for two years, and we’re still in the changing room.”
The aviation minister, Baroness Sugg, said: “Aviation, tourism and travel have never been more important to this country.
“Our future prosperity will depend even more on reaching out to global partners.
“Securing a good deal for aviation with the best possible access to Europe remains one of our key Brexit priorities.”
She said that aviation would continue operating on current terms until the end of 2020.
The ABTA boss also rebuked attacks on business from senior politicians, saying: “It is right that businesses are speaking out against a ‘no deal’ exit from the EU, or a ‘cliff-edge’.
“We are surely approaching a crunch time, when hard choices will have to be made,” said Mr Tanzer. “The government should listen to those who have knowledge on their side, rather than just ideology.”
The government says it has agreed to a transitional period for leaving the EU until the end of 2020, providing certainty for industry.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The GOP Raised Taxes on Churches to Fund Its Giveaway to the Rich - Intelligencer ( New York Magazine )
June 26, 2018
11:25 am
The GOP Raised Taxes on Churches to Fund Its Giveaway to the Rich
By
Eric Levitz
@EricLevitz
The Republican Party has many masters. On matters of reproductive choice, it answers to the Christian right; on foreign policy, to the military-industrial complex; on immigration, the racial paranoia of their rank-and-file constituents.
But the conservative movement’s largest shareholders are — and always have been — reactionary plutocrats hell-bent on maximizing the amount of wealth they can extract from the lower orders. Some of these would-be oligarchs have sympathy for the GOP’s other projects; but virtually all see them as secondary to the task of restoring the Mammon-given right of the superrich to hoard unaccountable, economic power. And the Koch Network votes its shares.
Thus, when Republicans returned to power on the back of a xenophobic populist — who had campaigned on preserving entitlements, soaking hedge-fund managers, building a border wall, and making $1 trillion worth of investments in public infrastructure — their priorities did not change. The fact that a majority of GOP voters opposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations — and supported higher federal spending on health care — was irrelevant. So too, was the fact that an unprecedented drug-overdose epidemic was devastating many of the most staunchly Republican areas of the country. The absence of a popular mandate for tax cuts — and the presence of a public health emergency that could only be quelled through federal investment in addiction treatment — changed nothing. The Republican Congress appropriated $6 billion to combat an opioid crisis that had just killed more than 42,000 Americans in a single year; it added $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit for regressive tax cuts.
And the actual cost of the GOP’s giveaway to the economic elite was far larger than that. To keep the legislation’s price tag at $1.5 trillion, Republicans had to offset massive tax breaks for the rich by eliminating tax benefits prized by the (merely) affluent, the middle class — and, remarkably, Evangelical churches.
That last bit somehow slipped under the radar last fall; many conservative congregations are just now realizing that their own political party slapped a complicated new tax on their parking lots. Politico explains:
[T]o help defray the budgetary cost of [tax cuts on businesses and individuals], Republicans simultaneously pared tax breaks for workers’ fringe benefits, which is projected to raise around $40 billion over the next decade.
They were mainly trimming deductions companies have long taken for entertaining clients and providing meals for employees. But Republicans also wanted to treat nonprofits equally, which proved challenging. Because those organizations don’t pay income taxes, lawmakers couldn’t take away fringe-benefit deductions. So instead they created a 21 percent tax on the value of some of nonprofit employees’ benefits.
The main benefits affected are transportation-related, like free parking in a lot or a garage and subway and bus passes. It also targets meals provided to workers and, in some circumstances, may affect gym memberships.
Now, one can make sound arguments for taxing religious institutions, and eliminating tax breaks for fringe employee benefits. The former forces the government to decide what does and does not count as a religion, while also subsidizing many organizations that do not serve what a majority of Americans would regard as “the public good.” The latter, meanwhile, biases the forms of compensation that corporations chose to provide to their employees.
But it’s harder to make a case for raising taxes on churches that provide employees with free meals — for the purpose of financing tax cuts for the richest 0.1 percent of Americans, who already owned as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined, before Trump’s tax cuts took effect.
Further, for nonprofits, the costs of the GOP’s new tax extend beyond its sticker price. As tax-exempt organizations, they have little experience in — or infrastructure for — complying with the IRS. And the tax on worker benefits is unusually complicated, as it requires nonprofits to both identify what qualifies as such a benefit, and to calculate the precise value of said benefit. This raises thorny, almost metaphysical questions, as Politico notes:
Churches and other groups want to know how they are supposed to go about calculating the value of things like parking spaces for employees. Some wonder if the garages provided as part of clergy residences are now taxable.
Universities want to know if the bus services they provide for faculty and students are taxable and how they figure out how much they owe. Orchestras want to know how to treat musicians who may perform in different locations.
“At what point is something a travel reimbursement? And at what point is it a commuter benefit?” said Heather Noonan, vice president for advocacy at the League of American Orchestras.
In 2016, white Evangelical Christians backed Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 81 to 16 percent. The GOP could not exist in anything resembling its current form without this demographic’s overwhelming support. And yet, the party decided that it was not worth trimming its tax cuts by a few billion dollars to spare their houses of worship from a novel logistical and financial headache.
By all accounts, many (if not most) Republican lawmakers did not know about this provision when they voted it into law. But that fact is itself a testament to the GOP donor class’s domination of the Republican Party: Congressional Republicans rushed through an overhaul of the tax code — with barely any hearings or debate — precisely because they understood that their paymasters’ priorities were deeply unpopular, and thus, had to be enacted as rapidly and discreetly as possible.
There is little reason to believe that Republicans will pay any price for letting money-lenders leech off the Christian right’s temples. For one thing, the Trump tax cuts were very kind to the (immensely wealthy) megachurch pastors who lead the white Evangelical movement. For another, the rank-and-file religious right is thrilled with their libertine president, who has both delivered tangible policy victories on abortion and contraceptives, and (perhaps, more importantly) put ungrateful black athletes, godless liberal elites, and murderous illegals in their respective, subordinate places. In March, the Public Religion Research Institute poll found Trump’s support among white Evangelicals stood at 75 percent.
11:25 am
The GOP Raised Taxes on Churches to Fund Its Giveaway to the Rich
By
Eric Levitz
@EricLevitz
The Republican Party has many masters. On matters of reproductive choice, it answers to the Christian right; on foreign policy, to the military-industrial complex; on immigration, the racial paranoia of their rank-and-file constituents.
But the conservative movement’s largest shareholders are — and always have been — reactionary plutocrats hell-bent on maximizing the amount of wealth they can extract from the lower orders. Some of these would-be oligarchs have sympathy for the GOP’s other projects; but virtually all see them as secondary to the task of restoring the Mammon-given right of the superrich to hoard unaccountable, economic power. And the Koch Network votes its shares.
Thus, when Republicans returned to power on the back of a xenophobic populist — who had campaigned on preserving entitlements, soaking hedge-fund managers, building a border wall, and making $1 trillion worth of investments in public infrastructure — their priorities did not change. The fact that a majority of GOP voters opposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations — and supported higher federal spending on health care — was irrelevant. So too, was the fact that an unprecedented drug-overdose epidemic was devastating many of the most staunchly Republican areas of the country. The absence of a popular mandate for tax cuts — and the presence of a public health emergency that could only be quelled through federal investment in addiction treatment — changed nothing. The Republican Congress appropriated $6 billion to combat an opioid crisis that had just killed more than 42,000 Americans in a single year; it added $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit for regressive tax cuts.
And the actual cost of the GOP’s giveaway to the economic elite was far larger than that. To keep the legislation’s price tag at $1.5 trillion, Republicans had to offset massive tax breaks for the rich by eliminating tax benefits prized by the (merely) affluent, the middle class — and, remarkably, Evangelical churches.
That last bit somehow slipped under the radar last fall; many conservative congregations are just now realizing that their own political party slapped a complicated new tax on their parking lots. Politico explains:
[T]o help defray the budgetary cost of [tax cuts on businesses and individuals], Republicans simultaneously pared tax breaks for workers’ fringe benefits, which is projected to raise around $40 billion over the next decade.
They were mainly trimming deductions companies have long taken for entertaining clients and providing meals for employees. But Republicans also wanted to treat nonprofits equally, which proved challenging. Because those organizations don’t pay income taxes, lawmakers couldn’t take away fringe-benefit deductions. So instead they created a 21 percent tax on the value of some of nonprofit employees’ benefits.
The main benefits affected are transportation-related, like free parking in a lot or a garage and subway and bus passes. It also targets meals provided to workers and, in some circumstances, may affect gym memberships.
Now, one can make sound arguments for taxing religious institutions, and eliminating tax breaks for fringe employee benefits. The former forces the government to decide what does and does not count as a religion, while also subsidizing many organizations that do not serve what a majority of Americans would regard as “the public good.” The latter, meanwhile, biases the forms of compensation that corporations chose to provide to their employees.
But it’s harder to make a case for raising taxes on churches that provide employees with free meals — for the purpose of financing tax cuts for the richest 0.1 percent of Americans, who already owned as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined, before Trump’s tax cuts took effect.
Further, for nonprofits, the costs of the GOP’s new tax extend beyond its sticker price. As tax-exempt organizations, they have little experience in — or infrastructure for — complying with the IRS. And the tax on worker benefits is unusually complicated, as it requires nonprofits to both identify what qualifies as such a benefit, and to calculate the precise value of said benefit. This raises thorny, almost metaphysical questions, as Politico notes:
Churches and other groups want to know how they are supposed to go about calculating the value of things like parking spaces for employees. Some wonder if the garages provided as part of clergy residences are now taxable.
Universities want to know if the bus services they provide for faculty and students are taxable and how they figure out how much they owe. Orchestras want to know how to treat musicians who may perform in different locations.
“At what point is something a travel reimbursement? And at what point is it a commuter benefit?” said Heather Noonan, vice president for advocacy at the League of American Orchestras.
In 2016, white Evangelical Christians backed Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 81 to 16 percent. The GOP could not exist in anything resembling its current form without this demographic’s overwhelming support. And yet, the party decided that it was not worth trimming its tax cuts by a few billion dollars to spare their houses of worship from a novel logistical and financial headache.
By all accounts, many (if not most) Republican lawmakers did not know about this provision when they voted it into law. But that fact is itself a testament to the GOP donor class’s domination of the Republican Party: Congressional Republicans rushed through an overhaul of the tax code — with barely any hearings or debate — precisely because they understood that their paymasters’ priorities were deeply unpopular, and thus, had to be enacted as rapidly and discreetly as possible.
There is little reason to believe that Republicans will pay any price for letting money-lenders leech off the Christian right’s temples. For one thing, the Trump tax cuts were very kind to the (immensely wealthy) megachurch pastors who lead the white Evangelical movement. For another, the rank-and-file religious right is thrilled with their libertine president, who has both delivered tangible policy victories on abortion and contraceptives, and (perhaps, more importantly) put ungrateful black athletes, godless liberal elites, and murderous illegals in their respective, subordinate places. In March, the Public Religion Research Institute poll found Trump’s support among white Evangelicals stood at 75 percent.
US Police Chiefs Oppose Donald Trump's Move To Detain Immigrant Families - NDTV
US Police Chiefs Oppose Donald Trump's Move To Detain Immigrant Families
In a joint letter, more than 45 law enforcement heads appealed to Trump to consider other possibilities than incarceration.
World | Reuters | Updated: June 27, 2018 17:40 IST
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US Police Chiefs Oppose Donald Trump's Move To Detain Immigrant Families
Trump had scrapped the policy of separating children from illegal immigrants (File)
WASHINGTON: Police chiefs from across the United States, both Republicans and Democrats, on Wednesday urged the White House to find alternatives to detention of immigrant families given the risks it poses to children and its huge cost.
In a joint letter, more than 45 law enforcement heads appealed to Trump to consider other possibilities than incarceration, such as requiring heads of households to wear global positioning signal (GPS) ankle bracelets or receive periodic telephone checks.
The geographic and political diversity of the signatory police chiefs showed their apprehension at locking up migrant families at a time when U.S. law enforcement is trying to gain the trust of immigrant communities.
Trump issued an order on Wednesday to scrap his policy of separating children from parents caught entering the United States illegally, a move praised by the police chiefs.
But under the order, which is likely to be challenged in court, families would instead be detained together for the duration of immigration proceedings, which can take months or years to complete.
Family detention centers could radicalize young people, pushing them towards street gangs or hate groups, said Houston police chief Art Acevedo.
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"The last thing we need to do is marginalise and disenfranchize young people," said Acevedo, who emigrated to the United States from Cuba as a young child. "You can accomplish the safety aspect and monitoring aspect at a fraction of the cost without having the negative impact on kids."
Vetting of families would show most do not need to be incarcerated as they pose no threat to the community, according to the letter from the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force.
Confinement would endanger their childrens' physical and emotional development, according to the active and retired officials who ranged from Orlando police chief John Mina to Washington chief of police Peter Newsham and Cel Rivera, head of Lorain, Ohio's police force.
Taxpayers stand to save millions of dollars each year through incarceration alternatives, given the average cost of holding a person in specialised family detention is above $300 a day, according to the group.
Past alternatives to immigrant detention were more than 99 percent successful in getting family members to immigration hearings, the letter said.
COMMENT
"Local governments have been using alternatives to incarceration for a long time," said Fresno, California Sheriff Margaret Mims, a Republican who runs a local jail.
Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa blames Grace Mugabe faction for blast - BBC News
June 27, 2018
Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa blames Grace Mugabe faction for blast
Mnangagwa: Criminal will be hounded down, but Zimbabwe is safe
Zimbabwe's President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has said he suspects a group linked to the former first lady was behind an attempt on his life.
Two people died and more than 40 were hurt in an explosion near Mr Mnangagwa at a rally in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Mr Mnangagwa told the BBC's Fergal Keane that he suspected the G40 group, which supported Grace Mugabe for the presidency, had carried out the attack.
Mrs Mugabe's husband, Robert Mugabe, was forced from power last year.
The army intervened to oppose Mrs Mugabe's attempt to succeed her husband as the country's leader, and the ruling Zanu-PF party then sacked Mr Mugabe, replacing him with Mr Mnangagwa.
An exiled member of the G40 group, former government minister Jonathan Moyo, has denied Mr Mnangagwa's accusation, tweeting that the blast "smacks of an inside job".
He was referring to an apparent power struggle between Mr Mnangagwa and his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, the former army chief who forced Mr Mugabe out.
Mr Mnangagwa did not accuse Mrs Mugabe of being involved in the attempt on his life.
He told the BBC he expects arrests to be made shortly.
"I don't know whether it was one individual - I would think it is broader than one person. I would think this is a political action by some aggrieved persons," he said.
'Soft as wool'
Mr Mnangagwa described Mrs Mugabe as someone who had frequently insulted him in the past.
"On what basis would I trust someone who was used by a cabal to say things that had no basis?" he asked.
Nicknamed "the crocodile", Mr Mnangagwa has a reputation of being ruthless, but he told our correspondent: "I am as soft as wool. I am a very soft person in life, my brother. I'm a family person. I am a Christian."
Despite the apparent attempt on his life, Mr Mnangagwa said there would be no countrywide security clampdown and elections scheduled for 30 July would go ahead in a free and fair manner.
Zimbabwe was stable and that foreign investors should not worry, he said.
Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa blames Grace Mugabe faction for blast
Mnangagwa: Criminal will be hounded down, but Zimbabwe is safe
Zimbabwe's President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has said he suspects a group linked to the former first lady was behind an attempt on his life.
Two people died and more than 40 were hurt in an explosion near Mr Mnangagwa at a rally in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Mr Mnangagwa told the BBC's Fergal Keane that he suspected the G40 group, which supported Grace Mugabe for the presidency, had carried out the attack.
Mrs Mugabe's husband, Robert Mugabe, was forced from power last year.
The army intervened to oppose Mrs Mugabe's attempt to succeed her husband as the country's leader, and the ruling Zanu-PF party then sacked Mr Mugabe, replacing him with Mr Mnangagwa.
An exiled member of the G40 group, former government minister Jonathan Moyo, has denied Mr Mnangagwa's accusation, tweeting that the blast "smacks of an inside job".
He was referring to an apparent power struggle between Mr Mnangagwa and his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, the former army chief who forced Mr Mugabe out.
Mr Mnangagwa did not accuse Mrs Mugabe of being involved in the attempt on his life.
He told the BBC he expects arrests to be made shortly.
"I don't know whether it was one individual - I would think it is broader than one person. I would think this is a political action by some aggrieved persons," he said.
'Soft as wool'
Mr Mnangagwa described Mrs Mugabe as someone who had frequently insulted him in the past.
"On what basis would I trust someone who was used by a cabal to say things that had no basis?" he asked.
Nicknamed "the crocodile", Mr Mnangagwa has a reputation of being ruthless, but he told our correspondent: "I am as soft as wool. I am a very soft person in life, my brother. I'm a family person. I am a Christian."
Despite the apparent attempt on his life, Mr Mnangagwa said there would be no countrywide security clampdown and elections scheduled for 30 July would go ahead in a free and fair manner.
Zimbabwe was stable and that foreign investors should not worry, he said.
Migrant separations: US judge orders family reunifications - BBC News
June 27, 2018
Migrant separations: US judge orders family reunifications
A US judge has ordered that migrant children and their parents who were separated when they crossed into the US should be reunited within 30 days.
The judge issued the injunction in a case stemming from the administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
Meanwhile the policy of breaking up families at the Mexico border is being challenged by 17 US states.
Democratic attorneys general from states including Washington, New York and California launched the lawsuit.
More than 2,300 migrant children have been separated from their parents since early May under the Trump administration's controversial policy, which seeks to criminally prosecute anyone crossing the border illegally.
What did the judge say?
Tuesday's preliminary injunction, issued by a federal judge in San Diego, California, orders the government to reunite parents with their children aged under five within 14 days, and with older ones within 30 days.
"The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government's own making," Judge Dana Sabraw said.
The nationwide injunction was issued as part of a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a mother who was split from her six-year-old daughter after arriving in the US last year.
Court papers filed by the ACLU contained accounts from other parents unable to locate their children after they were separated at the border.
US pauses migrant family prosecutions
Hasn't Trump already backtracked on separations?
Last week President Trump issued an executive order promising to "keep families together" in migrant detention centres.
It urged officials to expedite cases involving families. "We don't like to see families separated," Mr Trump said.
The order was widely seen as the reversal of a policy that had drawn widespread domestic and international condemnation.
On Monday US border security chief Kevin McAleenan said he had halted criminal prosecutions of migrants who illegally enter the country with children, following Mr Trump's announcement.
However critics have said the order is vague, and does not specify when and how those already split up would be brought back together.
Two US military bases to house migrants
Migrant families face chaos to reunite
Media captionCisary Reynaud has not spoken to his daughter since they were separated
Why are the states challenging the policy?
The lawsuit by the 17 states argues that the order does not prevent the policy being used again in the future. Neither, they note, does it say anything about reuniting families that have been separated.
They call the policy "an affront" to the states' interests in maintaining standards of care for children and preserving parent-child relationships.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal callled it "cruel, plain and simple" and accused the administration of "issuing new, contradictory policies" every day.
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said the administration was causing "causing unfathomable trauma" and that migrant children held in New York City had to be treated for depression and suicidal behaviour.
The lawsuit was filed with the US District Court in Seattle, Washington, on Tuesday.
The states involved are Massachusetts, Washington, New York, California, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia plus the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit is similar to the case against the Trump administration's travel ban, which was initially blocked by Hawaii until the Supreme Court reversed the ruling on Tuesday morning.
What are officials saying?
Speaking in Brazil on Tuesday, US Vice-President Mike Pence warned undocumented immigrants not to "risk the lives of your children" by trying to enter the US illegally.
He said he had a message "straight from my heart" for those planning a journey to America: "If you can't come legally, don't come at all."
Also on Tuesday, the US health department's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) confirmed that 2,047 migrant children were currently in the care of the agency.
The children have been sent to holding cells, converted warehouses, desert tents or foster care around the US.
ORR director Scott Lloyd refused to say whether the agency was still receiving migrant children who had been separated from their families.
Migrant separations: US judge orders family reunifications
A US judge has ordered that migrant children and their parents who were separated when they crossed into the US should be reunited within 30 days.
The judge issued the injunction in a case stemming from the administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.
Meanwhile the policy of breaking up families at the Mexico border is being challenged by 17 US states.
Democratic attorneys general from states including Washington, New York and California launched the lawsuit.
More than 2,300 migrant children have been separated from their parents since early May under the Trump administration's controversial policy, which seeks to criminally prosecute anyone crossing the border illegally.
What did the judge say?
Tuesday's preliminary injunction, issued by a federal judge in San Diego, California, orders the government to reunite parents with their children aged under five within 14 days, and with older ones within 30 days.
"The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government's own making," Judge Dana Sabraw said.
The nationwide injunction was issued as part of a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a mother who was split from her six-year-old daughter after arriving in the US last year.
Court papers filed by the ACLU contained accounts from other parents unable to locate their children after they were separated at the border.
US pauses migrant family prosecutions
Hasn't Trump already backtracked on separations?
Last week President Trump issued an executive order promising to "keep families together" in migrant detention centres.
It urged officials to expedite cases involving families. "We don't like to see families separated," Mr Trump said.
The order was widely seen as the reversal of a policy that had drawn widespread domestic and international condemnation.
On Monday US border security chief Kevin McAleenan said he had halted criminal prosecutions of migrants who illegally enter the country with children, following Mr Trump's announcement.
However critics have said the order is vague, and does not specify when and how those already split up would be brought back together.
Two US military bases to house migrants
Migrant families face chaos to reunite
Media captionCisary Reynaud has not spoken to his daughter since they were separated
Why are the states challenging the policy?
The lawsuit by the 17 states argues that the order does not prevent the policy being used again in the future. Neither, they note, does it say anything about reuniting families that have been separated.
They call the policy "an affront" to the states' interests in maintaining standards of care for children and preserving parent-child relationships.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal callled it "cruel, plain and simple" and accused the administration of "issuing new, contradictory policies" every day.
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said the administration was causing "causing unfathomable trauma" and that migrant children held in New York City had to be treated for depression and suicidal behaviour.
The lawsuit was filed with the US District Court in Seattle, Washington, on Tuesday.
The states involved are Massachusetts, Washington, New York, California, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia plus the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit is similar to the case against the Trump administration's travel ban, which was initially blocked by Hawaii until the Supreme Court reversed the ruling on Tuesday morning.
What are officials saying?
Speaking in Brazil on Tuesday, US Vice-President Mike Pence warned undocumented immigrants not to "risk the lives of your children" by trying to enter the US illegally.
He said he had a message "straight from my heart" for those planning a journey to America: "If you can't come legally, don't come at all."
Also on Tuesday, the US health department's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) confirmed that 2,047 migrant children were currently in the care of the agency.
The children have been sent to holding cells, converted warehouses, desert tents or foster care around the US.
ORR director Scott Lloyd refused to say whether the agency was still receiving migrant children who had been separated from their families.
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