(SANTA FE, N.M.) — A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque.
The Democratic governor issued last Friday a 30-day suspension of open and concealed carry laws in Bernalillo County, where Albuquerque, the state’s most populous city, is seated.
The move was met with pushback from gun rights groups, several of which filed lawsuits seeking to block the order. At least four lawsuits have since been filed in federal court, with the Gun Owners Foundation, National Association for Gun Rights and We The Patriots USA among the various plaintiffs.
During a motion hearing Wednesday afternoon in Albuquerque on the cases, a judge granted a temporary restraining order, blocking enforcement of the governor’s ban until Oct 3, according to ABC Albuquerque affiliate KOAT.
Some law enforcement officials and elected leaders also pushed back against the Governor’s order. Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said on Monday his office will not enforce the ban. Two Republican state representatives, John Block and Stefani Lord, are calling for the governor to be impeached over the orders.
Lujan Grisham told “GMA3” earlier Wednesday she has the “courage” to take a stand against gun violence in response to backlash over her emergency public health order temporarily suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque.
“Everyone is terrified of the backlash for all of these political reactions,” Lujan Grisham told Eva Pilgrim on “GMA3” Wednesday. “None of those individuals or groups focused on the actual injuries or deaths of the public.”
“They aren’t dealing with this as the crisis that it is,” she continued.
The governor cited the recent shooting deaths of three children, including an 11-year-old boy gunned down outside a minor league baseball park last week, in issuing the temporary ban.
The decree came a day after Lujan Grisham declared gun violence a statewide public health emergency, saying “the rate of gun deaths in New Mexico increased 43% from 2009 to 2018.” Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 19 in New Mexico, she said.
“How would you feel in a city or a community if people had handguns in their belts, on parks, near schools, on public trails, at the grocery store?” Lujan Grisham told “GMA3.” “It’s outrageous and it must stop. And I will keep doing everything that’s based in science and fact and public safety efforts to clean up our cities to make this the safest state in America. And I will not stop until that’s done.”
In announcing the order, Lujan Grisham acknowledged it would face immediate challenges over constitutional rights.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a fellow Democrat, has said he will not defend the state in the lawsuits regarding the public health emergency order, stating in a letter that he does not believe the order will have any meaningful impact on public safety.
When asked what she would say in response, Lujan Grisham told GMA she would have the same response for other individuals.
“I hope that the public’s response is if we now have elected leaders to have the courage to stand up for children,” she said. “I don’t know why we’re electing individuals who aren’t going to stand up for the people who need us to make sure they’re safe and protected.”
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering “unprecedented” legislation that would have the state issuing work authorization for asylum seekers arriving by unyielding busloads from southern border states.
Hochul said she is talking to state Assembly and Senate leaders about what the bill would look like and whether it would be debated in a special session of the legislature or whether it could wait until lawmakers return to Albany in a few months.
“I spoke about this at the White House. I said I may do something at the state level,” Hochul said. “This would be unprecedented.”
The governor said her lawyers are discussing whether the state would need the federal government to sign off before any new law could take effect.
The Biden administration said there is already a “critical mass” of migrants able to obtain work permits but too few have applied.
“There’s a critical mass that we are confident are eligible to apply for work authorization immediately,” a senior administration official said during a call with reporters.
Hochul disputed it.
“I don’t know what a critical mass is. I don’t think it’s a high number,” the governor said.
The mayor’s office said about a fifth of migrants in the city’s care have filed asylum applications. The figure does not include those getting legal help from the nonprofit sector.
A spokesperson said the city is surveying all asylum seekers currently in its shelters to “determine who is eligible to apply for work authorization right now.”
Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom called the proposal “innovative.”
She said the city consistently hears from private business that “having a permit to work, I think, that would be one of the biggest solutions to get out of the humanitarian crisis we find ourselves in.”
Hochul said the state has no choice but to look into the feasibility of state-issued work permits, while acknowledging it would require federal approval.
“We are at a situation where the status quo will not hold any longer,” she said, saying she tells the White House on near daily calls, “it’s a federal problem, we need your help, do something.”
(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied former President Donald Trump’s attempt to stay the 2019 defamation lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
The lawsuit by the former Elle magazine columnist is scheduled to go to trial on Jan. 15. It alleges that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he said she was “not my type” and accused her of having a political and financial motive when he denied her claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A jury established in a related case that Trump was liable for defaming and battering Carroll.
Trump had sought to pause the 2019 case in order to give him time to invoke an immunity defense, his attorney argued in a hearing Tuesday.
The appeals court Wednesday ordered both sides to submit written briefs in the next 15 days to argue whether Trump should be able to invoke presidential immunity to shield himself from Carroll’s 2019 claim.
The district court judge faulted Trump for waiting more than three years to invoke presidential immunity, long after engaging with the case.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told “GMA3” she has the “courage” to take a stand against gun violence in response to backlash over her emergency public health order temporarily suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque.
The Democratic governor issued on Friday a 30-day suspension of open and concealed carry laws in Bernalillo County, where Albuquerque, the state’s most populous city, is seated.
The move was met with pushback from gun rights groups, several of which have since filed lawsuits seeking to block the order, as well as some law enforcement officials and elected leaders. Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said on Monday his office will not enforce the ban. Two Republican state representatives, John Block and Stefani Lord, are calling for the governor to be impeached over the orders.
“Everyone is terrified of the backlash for all of these political reactions,” Lujan Grisham told Eva Pilgrim on “GMA3” Wednesday. “None of those individuals or groups focused on the actual injuries or deaths of the public.”
“They aren’t dealing with this as the crisis that it is,” she continued.
The governor cited the recent shooting deaths of three children, including an 11-year-old boy gunned down outside a minor league baseball park last week, in issuing the temporary ban.
The decree came a day after Lujan Grisham declared gun violence a statewide public health emergency, saying “the rate of gun deaths in New Mexico increased 43% from 2009 to 2018.” Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 19 in New Mexico, she said.
“How would you feel in a city or a community if people had handguns in their belts, on parks, near schools, on public trails, at the grocery store?” Lujan Grisham told “GMA3.” “It’s outrageous and it must stop. And I will keep doing everything that’s based in science and fact and public safety efforts to clean up our cities to make this the safest state in America. And I will not stop until that’s done.”
In announcing the order, Lujan Grisham acknowledged it would face immediate challenges over constitutional rights. At least four lawsuits have since been filed in federal court seeking to block the order, with the Gun Owners Foundation, National Association for Gun Rights and We The Patriots USA among the various plaintiffs.
A motion hearing in the civil cases is scheduled for 1 p.m. MT on Wednesday before a federal judge in Albuquerque.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a fellow Democrat, has said he will not defend the state in the lawsuits regarding the public health emergency order, stating in a letter that he does not believe the order will have any meaningful impact on public safety.
When asked what she would say in response, Lujan Grisham told GMA she would have the same response for other individuals.
“I hope that the public’s response is if we now have elected leaders to have the courage to stand up for children,” she said. “I don’t know why we’re electing individuals who aren’t going to stand up for the people who need us to make sure they’re safe and protected.”
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(LAS VEGAS) — A Nevada judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the continuation of what it ruled was a teachers strike after the Clark County School District said eight schools had to be closed in seven days due to teachers calling in sick.
“What’s happening here is very clearly a strike that needs to be enjoined,” Nevada Judge Crystal Eller said at a hearing Wednesday.
She ruled that it is “preposterous” to assume this isn’t a strike and made the decision based on an “overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence,” Eller said. She asked attorneys for the district to draft a new injunction putting an end to the strike for her to sign.
The Clark County School District and a teacher’s union appeared in court Wednesday after the district asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to put an end to an alleged sickout that caused a spike in staff absences.
The hearing comes as the district and the union are locked in a contract dispute.
The Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas, claims that through a “targeted and coordinated rolling-sickout strike” the Clark County Education Association’s licensed educators “forced the closure of three Clark County schools and severely disrupted the operations of two others” between Sept. 1 and Sept. 8, according to court documents shared by the Nevada Independent.
The Clark County Education Association represents more than 18,000 educators in the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth-largest.
Nevada law prohibits strikes by public sector employees. The district claimed that the absentee level at the affected schools is “unprecedented.”
The district claimed that the mass absences affected one school per day throughout most of the week, before causing two school closures on Sept. 8. Four more schools closed on Tuesday, followed by another Wednesday, according to Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV.
“It defies logic to suggest that these mass absences constitute anything but the type of concerted pretextual absences that [Nevada law] plainly defines as a strike,” the district said in court documents.
“The legislature outlawed this 50 years ago and the defendants in this case have clearly helped their members effect this strike,” lawyers for the district said at the hearing Wednesday.
The district is asking the court to intervene and stop the alleged strike, claiming the situation will only continue, according to court documents.
“This strike is the culmination of Defendants’ months-long campaign to pressure the District into more favorable bargaining terms by credibly threatening that there would be no school without a contract,” the district said in court documents.
In court, a lawyer for the union argued that there is not any evidence that the union coordinated an effort for teachers to call in sick illegitimately.
“I don’t disagree that something is happening in the world,” I disagree that my clients bare responsibility for it, the union’s lawyer said.
The union has been rallying over contract demands and to ensure students have a licensed teacher in every classroom, according to posts on social media.
The union said it had no knowledge of absences from last week and denied that they were in any way associated with the union’s actions in a statement to the Nevada Independent.
The union did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(MIAMI) — After Florida’s governor and education department rolled out a controversial updated curriculum regarding Black history lessons, many students, parents, educators and elected officials raised their voices over how slavery was being presented.
The new curriculum included instruction for middle school students that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, can be applied for their personal benefit.”
“That’s mean,” Marvin Dunn, a professor at Florida International University, told ABC News. “That’s mean to say that to Black people that there was some advantage, some positive benefit to being enslaved. They weren’t even considered to be persons. So how could they have personal benefits?”
Dunn and other educators have banded together with parents and students and formed a non-profit coalition, the Miami Center for Racial Justice, to protest Florida’s new curriculum and raise awareness for the Black history that they say is being erased from classrooms.
The group has held rallies and teaching tours at Florida’s historical sites to counter some of the misconceptions they say are now being taught.
One of the tours was in Rosewood, Florida, where a Black community once prospered until a white mob destroyed it in 1923.
“People need to walk in the places where these things happened so that they become meaningful to them, so that you carry the experience beyond just the academic histories, not just facts,” Dunn said. “If you only teach history as facts, you’re really teaching a catalog, not really emotion.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended the curriculum while campaigning for president, particularly the notion that slavery benefited Black Americans.
“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into things later in life,” DeSantis said during a news conference in July.
The governor further defended the curriculum changes in an interview with Fox News in August contending the curriculum’s wording lets teachers show “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“That particular passage wasn’t saying that slavery was a benefit. It was saying there was resourcefulness, and people acquired skills in spite of slavery, not because of it,” he said.
Juana Jones, a Miami middle school teacher and parent, however, told ABC News she was concerned about this major change to teaching slavery.
“I do believe that kids should know the truth about how this nation came about, and then they can form their own opinions afterwards,” Jones said. “There’s a level of trauma, and I do believe that everyone should know the truth in middle school [and] high school.”
Dunn warned that the country is not far away from a period of severe anti-race violence, and the only way to solve this problem is to educate people about the truth.
“It’s important to know history, to not repeat history. It’s important to note so that we don’t do it again,” he said.
(LOS ANGELES) — A Colombian migrant father reunited with his partner and 10-year-old daughter in Los Angeles after being apart for more than two weeks following their separation by U.S. border authorities in Texas.
The couple, Ambar and Jaen, made the treacherous journey to seek asylum in the United States with their daughter, Aranza. The couple asked ABC News not to use their last names because of safety concerns. Like many migrant families, they left everything behind in their home countries, fleeing what they say were unsafe conditions – all for a better future for their little girl.
“[It was] traumatic,” Jaen said. “It was a risky decision. We knew we had someone to take care of, our daughter. As a family, we felt we didn’t have another option.”
Reports of officials separating families at the border date back to 2017, under the Trump administration, as part of a policy of splitting up children from their parent or guardian at the border.
The Biden administration discontinued the mandated separation, but for some families who arrive in Texas, it’s still happening, according to Margaret Cargioli, directing attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
“Customs and Border Protection has continued to separate families where they question the validity of [their] relationship or, you know, they send adult males to detention centers in the United States,” Cargioli said.
When Ambar, Jaen and Aranza arrived at the border, border authorities initially classified them as a family unit.
“We told them we had formal legal document of our civil union from Colombia. They gave us bracelets and separated us from the group we arrived with. In that moment, no one explained anything to us,” Ambar said.
“Then they cut off our bracelets and took [Jaen]. They didn’t give me an explanation where they were taking him. The only response I was given was that’s how the laws are here,” Ambar said.
As Jaen was being led away, he recalls looking back at Ambar and his daughter.
“I didn’t want to leave, and I cried like never before,” Jaen said.
Jaen was taken to a detention center, while Ambar was left alone with her daughter and no money. She wondered what she would do until someone at the shelter in McAllen, Texas, offered her and Aranza seats on a bus headed to Los Angeles carrying 41 other migrants.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said, “This report is troubling. We can both enforce our laws and treat human beings with dignity. Unlawful border crossings have gone down since our border enforcement plan went into effect. Managing our border in a safe and humane way works best when we all work together to respect the dignity of every human being and keep our communities safe.”
Unknown to Ambar at the time, the long bus ride to Los Angeles was part of a policy that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott established just over a year ago. More than 30,000 migrants have been bused from Texas to Democrat-led cities across the country.
There were 92,454 encounters between migrants and Border Patrol agents in July alone at the Texas-Mexico border, according to Customs and Border Protection. Abbott claims transporting migrants provides needed relief to overwhelmed border communities.
But his policies have faced sharp scrutiny from humanitarian organizations and advocates like Cargioli.
“Governor Abbott’s policy is causing real harm to real individuals,” Cargioli said.
Meanwhile, the mayors of New York City, Denver, Philadelphia and Los Angeles are calling on the Biden administration to grant federal assistance to deal with the influx of migrants in their cities.
Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the migrant crisis “will destroy” the city, saying it could cost another $12 billion to address the migrant crisis in the next few years.
Cargioli disagrees, saying that the city needs to work with “community members and organizations that are able to assist” and expand federal policies to help asylum seekers better assimilate in their communities.
Last month, the White House granted $77 million in congressional funding for communities receiving migrants. But some say money alone won’t mitigate the crisis.
The Biden administration has imposed new asylum restrictions on some who cross into the U.S. from Mexico. A similar policy was struck down during the Trump years.
“The Biden administration has not opened at the border as we’ve known it prior to the Trump administration. They’ve continued to use restrictive measures,” Cargioli said.
Ambar was finally able to contact her husband through a nonprofit organization after eight long days without any communication. Jaen was finally released from Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas and flown by an immigrant advocacy group to reunite with his family 17 days after their separation.
They are now living in New York and are hoping to be granted the chance to stay and build a life in the U.S.
“That this country grants us the opportunity to demonstrate that we deserve to be here. We come here to work, and do whatever it takes to stay here, whenever God allows it,” Ambar said.
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Lee, which is crawling through the Atlantic Ocean as a major Category 3 storm, is bringing dangerous rip currents and huge waves to the East Coast.
Here’s what you need to know:
Alerts for high surf and rip currents have been issued from Florida to Massachusetts.
On Wednesday, the Carolinas will see waves reaching 8 to 12 feet. New Jersey and Long Island are forecast to get 7- to 10-foot waves.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending 50 National Guardsmen to help Long Island prepare for the possible high surf, rip currents, coastal flooding and beach erosion.
“Out of an abundance of caution, I have deployed the National Guard and directed state agencies to prepare emergency response assets and be ready to respond to local requests for assistance,” Hochul said in a statement on Tuesday.
By Thursday night, Lee will start to move north and weaken. It’s forecast to pass Bermuda as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing gusty winds and rain squalls. A tropical storm warning has been issued for the island.
Lee is forecast to still be hurricane-strength by the time it passes east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, over the weekend.
By Saturday morning, Lee is expected to bring strong, gusty winds to coastal New England, from Rhode Island to Boston to Maine. The strong winds will last through the day on Saturday.
On Saturday evening, Lee may make landfall between coastal Maine and Nova Scotia, bringing huge waves, heavy rain, storm surge and powerful winds.
Rain is forecast from Cape Cod to Maine, with the heaviest rain and worst storm surge in Maine.
(NEW YORK) — A fugitive who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison just days after being sentenced to life without parole in the fatal stabbing of his ex-girlfriend was captured early Wednesday, Pennsylvania State Police said.
Danelo Cavalcante was captured at 8:14 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. He was found hiding in or near a large pile of logs behind a John Deere store in South Coventry Township, about 30 miles from a county-run prison where he escaped 14 days ago.
“Today is a great day in Chester County. Our nightmare is finally over and the good guys won,” Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan said at a news conference Thursday morning.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro began the news conference by announcing Cavalcante’s capture, praising “the extraordinary work of law enforcement officials” from local, state and federal agencies.
Bivens said a state police tactical unit and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection team from El Paso, Texas, quickly surrounded the area and maintained a perimeter until Wednesday morning when they moved in. Bivens said Cavalcante didn’t realize he was cornered until he saw the officers coming toward him.
“Tactical teams converged on the area where the heat source was. They were able to move in very quietly. They had the element of surprise,” Bivens said. “Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that had occurred.”
He said Cavalcante did not surrender immediately. He said the fugitive tried to get away by crawling through thick brush while armed with a .22-caliber rifle he stole from a nearby residence Wednesday night.
Bivens said a police dog from the Border Patrol team was sent in and was able to help detain Cavalcante, biting him at least once. No shots were fired.
There were no injuries to law enforcement officers, Bivens said.
“The dog subdued him and team members from both of those teams immediately moved in,” Bivens said. “He continued to resist, but was forcibly taken into custody.”
He said Cavalcante was bitten on the scalp and was treated at the scene.
Asked why lethal force was not used when Cavalcante resisted, Bivens said, “That option is only to prevent the escape of a very dangerous individual.”
“Had they not been able to contain him, that would have remained an option,” Bivens said, adding that 20 to 25 officers were involved in Cavalcante’s arrest.
Shortly after the arrest, a large group of officers posed for a photo with Cavalcante, who was in handcuffs, soaking wet and wearing a gray Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt he allegedly stole during his time on the lam. He was also wearing dark work boots he swiped from a residence Wednesday night and dark pants he was wearing when he escaped, officials said.
“I’m aware that there was a photo op that was taken out there. Those men and women worked amazingly hard through some trying circumstances. They’re proud of their work,” Bivens said. “I’m not bothered at all by that. They took a photo with him in custody.”
Cavalcante was loaded in the back of an armored vehicle and driven to the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Avondale, where investigators hoped to question him, Bivens said.
As the armored vehicle carrying Cavalcante approached the police barracks in Avondale, some residents in the area lined the roadway cheering, pumping their fists in the air and applauding.
“I can assure you he will not escape while he is in our custody,” Bivens said.
He said Cavalcante will eventually be transferred to a state prison to begin serving out his life sentence for the brutal 2021 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, who was stabbed 38 times in a Schuylkill Township, Pennsylvania, home in front of her two young children.
The end of the 14-day manhunt for the 34-year-old Cavalcante came as a relief to residents of in Chester County, who had been advised by officials to stay alert and keep their doors and windows locked. Several schools in Pocopson Township canceled classes as the search for Cavalcante intensified.
A combination of tactical teams from Pennsylvania State Police, FBI and Border Patrol brought Cavalcante into custody, according to a law enforcement source.
Cavalcante, who officials said is also wanted in his native Brazil on homicide charges, escaped from the Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township on Aug. 31.
Cavalcante was noticed missing that morning about an hour after his escape after inmates returned from the exercise yard at the prison, where he was being held pending transfer to a state correctional institution.
He had scaled a wall to gain access to the roof and pushed through razor wire before jumping down to a less secure area to make his getaway, Howard Holland, the acting warden of the Chester County Prison, told reporters during a recent press briefing.
Cavalcante followed the same method of escape and route used by an inmate at the Chester County Prison, Holland said. Inmate Igor Vidra Bolte broke out of the prison in Pocopson Township on May 19 by scaling a wall in an exercise yard to gain access to the roof, according to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News.
Holland noted “one key difference” between the two escapes was the actions of a tower guard whose primary responsibility was to monitor inmates in the exercise yard.
“In Bolte’s escape, the tower officer observed the subject leaving the yard area and contacted control immediately. That is why Bolte was apprehended within 5 minutes,” Holland said. “In the escape of Cavalcante, the tower officer did not observe nor report the escape. The escape was discovered as part of the inmate counts that occur when the inmates come in from the exercise yard.”
Cavalcante escaped from the prison by “crab walking” up a wall, pushing his way through razor wire installed after Bolte’s escape, running across the prison roof and scaling more razor wire, Holland said.
The corrections officer on duty in the guard tower at the time was terminated on Sept. 7, officials said.
Holland said during the press briefing on Sept. 6 that steps are being taken now to completely enclose the eight exercise yards at the prison, which are now open-air. He said additional security cameras will also be installed and additional officers will be on the ground to help the tower officers monitor the inmates in the exercise yards.
The search for Cavalcante was initially centered in an area near the Chester County Prison, where he had been spotted multiple times, officials said.
A citizen reported seeing a man matching Cavalcante’s description on Sept. 7 running through the area near Longwood Gardens, a sprawling horticulture attraction located about 5 miles southwest of the prison, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police. The search perimeter shifted toward Longwood Gardens, and Calvalcante was spotted two more times in the search area on Sept. 8, state police said.
Bivens said nearly 400 people from multiple agencies were engaged in the manhunt on Sept. 8, adding that they will “keep up this search at whatever tempo is appropriate for as long as we need to. He’s a dangerous individual.”
A Chester County jury on Aug. 16 convicted Cavalcante of first-degree murder in the fatal 2021 stabbing in Brandao.
The jury took just 15 minutes of deliberations before voting unanimously to convict Cavalcante.
Prosecutors said Brandao was killed after she learned Cavalcante was wanted for murder in Brazil and threatened to expose him to police, officials said in a statement following Cavalcante’s conviction.
Following Brandao’s murder, Cavalcante fled to Virginia, where he was arrested and brought back to Pennsylvania to face justice for Brandao’s killing.
It was the second time in less than two months that a dangerous inmate had escaped from a Pennsylvania lockup. Inmate Michael Burham, who is a suspect in the rape and murder of a 34-year-old woman in Jamestown, New York, escaped from the Warren County Jail in northern Pennsylvania on July 6.
Burham, an Army reserve sergeant who authorities said was a “self-taught survivalist,” was captured on July 15 following a massive manhunt in the northern Pennsylvania woods.
NEW YORK — A former Trader Joe’s employee is accusing the grocery chain of pregnancy discrimination and retaliation in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, alleging mistreatment and claiming that a change in the company’s health insurance policy led to her coverage being wrongly revoked after she went on maternity leave.
Julia Hammer, 42, began her employment as a full-time employee at Trader Joe’s Lower East Side location in Manhattan on October 19, 2018, and was transferred upon her request in April 2021 – shortly before giving birth – to the grocery chain’s Long Island City location in Queens, according to the complaint obtained by ABC News.
Hammer claims in the lawsuit that upon returning to work from maternity leave in August 2021, her employer failed to provide her with a private and clean room to pump milk for her newborn child. According to the lawsuit, Hammer says that she had to “rely on an unsanitary mechanical room” that was often used by others — an experience she said brought physical discomfort and pain when she couldn’t pump.
The lawsuit also details an alleged incident on Nov. 10, 2021, when a male co-worker walked in on her while she was pumping, leaving her “scared and very shaken up” as she found herself “completely exposed” and “in a vulnerable place.”
ABC News reached out to Trader Joe’s representatives to inquire about the grocery chain’s maternity leave policy and whether there’s a policy regarding providing mothers with lactation rooms.
The suit further alleges that after returning from maternity leave, Hammer learned in November 2021 that Trader Joe’s health care coverage policy was set to change in 2022 and that her coverage would be revoked by Dec. 31, 2021, leaving her and her newborn child without health insurance. Hammer claims that losing her health insurance forced her to resign from Trader Joe’s in December 2021 to find a job that provided her with health insurance.
It is unclear what changes were made to Trader Joe’s health care coverage policy.
According to Trader Joe’s website, the grocery chain offers “medical, dental and vision plans to eligible Crew Members,” but it does not specify how many hours an employee needs to work.
ABC News has reached out to Trader Joe’s national representatives and management at its Long Island City location in Queens, but requests for comment were not immediately returned.
The suit claims that Hammer’s health care coverage was revoked “under the guise that Hammer did not meet the required number of hours to be eligible for her entitled benefits,” but also alleges that when calculating the “minimum number of hours to qualify for insurance, it became clear that Trader Joe’s was evaluating Hammer’s hours without considering that she went on [maternity] leave.”
Hammer, who is gay and became pregnant through insemination, also alleges in the complaint that she experienced “numerous discriminatory and offensive comments to her about pregnancy and childbirth” from co-workers and managers during her pregnancy at both locations.
“Returning to work after giving birth has many challenges, but the way Trader Joe’s treated me only made it more difficult,” Hammer told ABC News in a statement through her attorney on Tuesday. “From the anxiety and stress every time I had to pump in that horrible mechanical room, to me and my infant child losing health insurance during a pandemic, Trader Joe’s caused me and my family to suffer tremendously. Companies like Trader Joe’s that claim to care about their employees have a responsibility to support working mothers just like everyone else, and I want to help make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen to other people.”
According to the complaint, Hammer’s experience led her to seek professional help in December 2021 and she was ultimately prescribed anxiety medication, leading her to stop breastfeeding because she was concerned about the impact it could have on her child.
“Hammer felt profoundly disappointed and guilty about no longer providing milk to her child,” the complaint says.
According to the suit, Hammer is seeking unspecified emotional distress damages, financial compensation and attorney’s fees.
