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WASHINGTON — A Justice Department indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center is part of a “top-down” campaign of retribution against President Trump’s perceived political enemies and constitutes a vindictive prosecution that must be dismissed, lawyers for the nonprofit argued Tuesday in urging a judge to toss out the case.

The Alabama-based nonprofit was indicted in April on fraud and money laundering charges that accuse it of misleading donors by paying informants inside white supremacist and other extremist organizations to obtain inside information about their activities.

Lawyers for the SPLC already argued that law enforcement agencies have long known that the nonprofit paid informants to report on the movements of hate groups. They also said acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche made a false statement at a news conference and in interviews when he said the organization had not shared with law enforcement information it learned from informants. Blanche later appeared to walk back that claim in a television interview, saying it was true that the SPLC “selectively” shared information with law enforcement over the years.

The attorneys for the center expanded on those arguments Tuesday, saying in a motion to dismiss the case that the prosecution was the “culmination of a top-down, retributive campaign” in which Trump pushed the Justice Department “to go after those individuals and groups he deemed his political enemies, including the SPLC.”

Defense says indictment fits broader retaliation campaign

The motion was filed against the backdrop of other politically charged prosecutions that have raised concerns that the Justice Department is operating as a weapon to target Trump’s opponents. It aims to draw a parallel between the SPLC indictment and the human smuggling prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was dismissed Friday on similar vindictive prosecution grounds by a judge who called the case an “abuse of prosecuting power.”

The SPLC has said its now-defunct program of paying informants to infiltrate hate groups was developed to glean key insights into their activities so that potential victims could be protected. An earlier federal investigation into the practice was closed without charges, but the motion paints the current Justice Department as pursuing the case with renewed — and rushed — vigor.

The department decided to pursue the indictment without interviewing any current SPLC employees and did not seek any documents from the group until after it told defense lawyers that criminal charges were coming, the defense motion states. During a meeting requested by defense lawyers who hoped to avert to indictment, Justice Department officials informed them that the decision already had been made to pursue charges, according to the motion.

“These procedural irregularities show that the charges against the SPLC were a foregone conclusion based on prosecutorial vindictiveness — driven by the White House and FBI leadership’s retribution campaign — rather than the result of a good faith examination of the evidence,” the motion states, saying the indictment was “premised on conclusory accusations but devoid of provable facts or a proper statement of the law.”

The motion also cites whistleblower accounts that accused top Justice Department officials of rushing forward with an indictment despite internal concerns about the merits of the case and the strength of the evidence.

“For weeks, we have been arguing against these false allegations levied against the SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive,” Bryan Fair, the interim president and chief executive officer of SPLC, said in a statement. “The government can’t prosecute the SPLC as payback for its protected speech — it violates basic constitutional rights.”

The administration has painted SPLC as partisan

Founded in 1971 as a civil rights organization, the SPLC over the decades has used litigation to fight white supremacist groups. It also tracks the activities and locations of domestic extremists. But its work has made it a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The center, for instance, received fresh attention last year after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk because the SPLC had included a section on the group that Kirk founded and led, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel announced in October that the bureau would be severing its relationship with the SPLC, saying it had turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged antigovernment and hate groups inside the United States.

The defense motion says “animus” from senior levels of the administration helped shape the indictment.

It cites, among other comments, a statement from Trump deriding the SPLC as “a total scam run by the Democrats,” as well as a news media interview in which Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights official, said the indictment was “personal” to her because she had “a lot of journalist friends … and groups that I’ve represented who have been targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Four Memphis residents are suing U.S. and Tennessee officials, saying they have been harassed, arrested and physically mistreated for engaging in First Amendment protected activities by observing and recording law enforcement agents in their city.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court targets the Memphis Safe Task Force, comprising agents from 13 federal agencies that President Trump ordered to the city to fight crime alongside Tennessee State Troopers and the Tennessee National Guard.

Since late September, hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel tied to the task force have made traffic stops, served warrants and searched for fugitives in the majority Black city of about 610,000 people. The lawsuit says the task force has conducted over 120,000 traffic stops.

“In the professed name of crime control, Task Force agents have stopped, menaced, and arrested Memphians engaging in routine, day-to-day activities,” the lawsuit states. “In response, Memphians encountering Task Force agents in public, including Plaintiffs, have stopped to gather information about and record Task Force activities.”

Emails from the Associated Press to the U.S. Department of Justice and a spokesperson for the task force were not returned on Wednesday morning.

Federal officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, have visited Memphis to praise the task force. Miller in October predicted the surge in law enforcement would make the city “safer than any of you could ever possibly imagine” and that “businesses and investment are going to pour in, and Memphis will be richer than ever before.”

The task force is part of a larger effort by Trump to use National Guard troops and surge federal law enforcement in cities, particularly ones controlled by Democrats. Following troop deployments in the District of Columbia and Los Angeles, he referred to Portland, Ore., as “war-ravaged” and threatened apocalyptic force in Chicago. Speaking last year to U.S. military leaders in Virginia, Trump proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.

The lawsuit accuses task force agents of systematically retaliating against the four plaintiffs and other members of the public engaged in similar observations. It claims the threats and harassment are the “direct result of federal policy” that views observing federal agents performing their duties in public as a threat of harm to those agents. The lawsuit also claims that federal and state officials have failed to train their agents not to retaliate against citizens engaged in First Amendment protected activities.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that retaliation against the plaintiffs for observing and recording law enforcement activity is unconstitutional and to prohibit the agents from further retaliation. It also targets a Tennessee law that requires observers to stand at least 25 feet away from law enforcement officers, if they are warned to do so, or face arrest. The suit asks the court to declare unconstitutional the use of the “Halo Law” against defendants who are not interfering with agents or impeding their duties.

Loller writes for the Associated Press.

TUCSON — Tucson migrant advocates have designed a new tool to help track immigration-related enforcement in and around the city as arrests surge under President Trump’s mass deportation initiative.

Tucson Migra Map allows people to document and visualize enforcement activities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. While revealing patterns, the tool also raises questions about safety, transparency and the limits of public tracking tools.

“It indicates the level of chaos and how disruptive it is to our community,” activist Lucia Vindiola said in a statement. Vindiola launched the mutual aid group La Bodega to provide groceries and other help to people affected by increased enforcement.

“We are seeing firsthand the impact on families, limiting them from shopping for groceries and supplies,” Vindiola said.

Since Trump took office, immigration-related detentions have more than tripled in fiscal year 2025 — surging from fewer than 200 in late 2024 to more than 800 by June 2025. The response in communities nationwide has been swift, with groups such as the Tucson Rapid Response network organizing to monitor and track federal immigration action on the street.

Geographer Dugan Meyer, one of the map’s creators, is a PhD student at the University of Arizona who volunteers with Tucson Rapid Response and related organizations.

“This project came out of the documentation work that Rapid Response is doing, but also around the city,” Meyer said. “It is a community research project, community mapping project.”

The data are pulled from spreadsheets maintained since January 2025 that tracks and documents federal enforcement actions in greater Tucson such as raids, vehicle stops and aerial surveillance.

Included is the December raid at one of several targeted Taco Giro locations where Democratic U.S. House Rep. Adelita Grijalva was pepper-sprayed by federal agents.

Incidents on the map are vetted and classified as “confirmed” or “credible but unconfirmed” based on the level of evidence.

“If we have photographs of, say, an agent wearing a tactical vest that says ‘ICE,’ that’s confirmed,” Meyer said. “Credible unconfirmed, we’re very confident something happened.”

Meyer said a trained Rapid Response observer witnessing an event, even if they had not photographed it, would be an example of a credible unconfirmed event.

“Their testimony about that would be enough for us,” he said.

Hundreds of people, including noncitizens, have contributed their eyewitness accounts of immigration enforcement to the map and the database it draws from, according to the Tucson Migrant Map website. Information from the local news is included, along with reports collected by Rapid Response and other neighborhood networks such as Migra Watch, and information shared on social media and in WhatsApp groups.

Rapid Response member Steven Davis has documented five incidents, including one in which he was pepper-sprayed by law enforcement. He says having these incidents recorded and published furthers his efforts to better show people what ICE is doing in their community.

“The value of the observation is that we take this out of the shadows and get it out into the public,” Davis said. “The Migra Map is a public-facing map that makes visible this activity that is mostly behind the scenes.”

Davis said knowing the data he collects will be used for Migra Map makes it more important for him to document diligently.

“There’s the saying, garbage in, garbage out. I want to make sure that the information that I’m providing is the most accurate information that I can possibly provide,” Davis said.

Meyer said that as of late April, the team had reviewed around 562 incidents, with about 300 meeting the threshold to be included. The goal is to review reported incidents within a week, then add qualifying cases.

“We know that the map is an undercount by any estimation,” Meyer said.

The map also includes police facilities and immigration detention facilities, along with flight paths of various federal agencies’ surveillance flights.

The accuracy of the reporting has been confirmed as more data is gathered, said Meyer. For example, repeated vehicle reports often confirm instances of surveillance.

Meyer said he hopes that the map will ultimately become a platform for information accessible to the public.

He said he thinks the map “can show in a way that people may know intuitively already.”

“It really helps us think about directly when we can see these things in relation to each other,” he added.

Meyer said that makes it easier to identify trends and point out hotspots like El Super grocery store on Tucson’s south side, which is frequented by mostly Latino customers and has seen a high concentration of enforcement.

“It’s used as a hunting ground for that, but there are others as well,” Meyer said, such as specific apartment complexes targeted by ICE or other agencies.

The Tucson Migra Map was not the first of its kind.

Last year, an initiative called People over Papers was used nationally to track immigration enforcement before being shut down by its host site, Padlet, for violations of its content policy.

Federal officials have said such tracking puts officers at risk, and other tracking sites, including ICEBlock, were previously taken offline after the Trump administration called for their removal.

Meyer said that he hopes the Constitution’s protection of free speech will protect Migra Map from a similar fate, and that people in other places will be encouraged to launch their own initiatives.

Davis, the observer, said that unlike the earlier trackers, the Migra Map doesn’t attempt to alert people to events occurring in real time, but reports enforcement actions after the fact.

“It doesn’t tell you where ICE is active right now. It tells you where ICE has been active in the last months,” Davis said. “You could file a Freedom of Information Act for the Tucson District Office and get the exact same information that we’re providing on the map.”

Meyer also noted that he and the other developers have been public about the project.

“It’s not a crime to collect this information and share this information,” said Meyer.

Nonetheless, some contributors opt to report anonymously out of fear.

“I think that anyone paying attention is at the very least concerned” about the current administration, Meyer said. He said he feels privileged he can publicly associate with the project.

But he allowed that Migra Map is far from perfect.

“The important thing is that it doesn’t tell us a lot,” Meyer said. “While many people would like it to be a real-time alert system, this map can’t be that.”

Cuellar writes for Arizona Luminaria, where this story was originally published. It was distributed through a partnership with the Associated Press.

I have a “big” birthday coming up. It’s the big 70 (gulp!). I’d like to throw myself a party, but one that might seem more fit for a 7-year-old than a 70-year-old (except when it comes to the food). I would like for there to be activities or games such as scavenger hunts, escape rooms, billiards, pinball, karaoke, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey — you name it. But my friends and I also appreciate gourmet-quality food like the stuff that’s served at Providence, Crustacean and Mélisse. Is there any way to combine all of that into a party for 20-30 people? — Marla Levine

Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations.

Here’s what we suggest:

Marla, I love that you want to celebrate your milestone birthday in a playful way that sparks your inner child. Who says you can’t run around and play games with your friends just because you’re a “grown-up”?

Similar to you, I prefer fun activities over stuffy, formal parties. I’ve celebrated my birthday at a go-kart racing track and a bowling alley. One year, I hosted an adult field day at the park with sack races, water balloons and snow cones, so I have some fun ideas for you. While many of these spots don’t offer gourmet-level cuisine — unless you consider chicken tenders and fries fancy — I’ve paired them with nearby restaurants that you can walk to. Depending on your vibe, you can do the activity first then walk to dinner, or vice versa.

One of my favorite adult-only barcades in Los Angeles is EightyTwo in the Arts District. Not only is it nestled between an array of bars, shops and restaurants, it is home to more than 50 vintage pinball and arcade machines. They have all of the classics like “Donkey Kong,” “Galaga,” “Mario Bros.,” “Ms. Pac-Man” and “Mortal Kombat.” On certain nights, you can catch live DJ sets as well. For a meal, consider the Michelin-recommended restaurant Manuela, which received a stamp of approval from the late Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. Tucked inside of the Hauser & Wirth complex, Manuela is a farm-to-table establishment with a variety of modern American bites to choose from. Whatever you do, be sure to order cream biscuits for the table.

An activity that instantly makes me feel like a kid again is singing — OK, more like belting — my favorite song into a microphone while surrounded by loved ones. One of the coolest karaoke spots in L.A. is Break Room 86, a nostalgic speakeasy hidden inside Koreatown’s Line hotel, which has private karaoke rooms, live DJs (and sometimes dancers, including a Michael Jackson impersonator) and an ice cream truck that serves boozy ice cream and Jell-O shots. Times senior food editor Danielle Dorsey says, “Entering the bar feels like you’ve stepped through an ’80s time machine with vintage arcade games, stacks of box TVs with static-fuzzy screens and tape cassettes decorating the walls.” Break Room 86 doesn’t open until 9 p.m., so check out Openaire for a sunset dinner. Led by Michelin-starred chef Josiah Citrin (the same guy behind one of your favorites, Mélisse), the rooftop restaurant offers elevated American fare such as a brick-pressed jidori chicken and grilled branzino — and it’s inside a glorious light-filled greenhouse.

Another spot that would make for an enjoyable birthday celebration is Highland Park Bowl, the oldest functioning bowling alley in L.A. Built in 1927 during the Prohibition era, the venue still has that vintage aesthetic with old pinsetters that serve as chandeliers, a revamped mural from the 1930s and eight refurbished bowling lanes. There’s also a billiards room and a full bar (with a tasty cocktail menu that rotates twice a year). When you get hungry, take a quick walk to Checker Hall, a neighborhood bar and restaurant that serves California-Mediterranean food such as skewers, turkish chicken and chicken schnitzel. Actor-comedian Hannah Pilkes told The Times it’s her “favorite bar in all of L.A.” How she described it: “It has the best cocktails and it almost feels like you’re in New Orleans when you step inside. It has a beautiful patio overlooking Highland Park. The decor is funky and kitschy yet classy; it’s magical.” Afterward, you can take another short walk to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams for a sweet treat (if you don’t have a cake).

My colleague Todd Martens, who writes about theme parks and immersive experiences, says it’s difficult to find escape rooms that can accommodate 20 to 30 people, but if you don’t mind splitting up and staggering your start times, check out Hatch Escapes near Koreatown. The venue can accommodate about 10 people at a time. Martens wrote about their room called “the Ladder,” which he describes as a “90-minute interactive movie with puzzles, taking guests through five decades, beginning in the 1950s, in which they will play an exaggerated game of corporate life.” The room “incorporates a wide variety of games, puzzles, as well as film and animation,” he adds. If this theme doesn’t spark your interest, there are three other options, including “Lab Rat,” which can accommodate 12 people.

You sound like a fun person, so I have a feeling that anything you do will be a good time. I hope that these suggestions are helpful in planning your special day. If you end up visiting any of these spots, please send us a photo. We’d love to see it. Happy birthday!