(The Center Square) – A coalition of 23 attorneys general led by Utah and South Carolina have called on Congress to permanently defund a United Nations agency after learning of its ties to the terrorist organization Hamas.

In a letter to congressional leaders, they said, “The United States must stop funding antisemitic education efforts run by the United Nations body tied to terror organization Hamas. On Oct. 7, UNRWA staff participated in the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.”

The agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, denied knowing that Hamas established intelligence operations directly below and in its headquarters in Gaza. Israeli Security Agency operatives raided UNRWA's headquarters earlier this year and found large quantities of weapons, rifles, ammunition, grenades and explosives in its offices, as well as a 700-meter long and 18-meter deep tunnel below, the Times of Israel reported.

Since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hamas has refused to share fuel with hospitals, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress. Multiple reports revealed that Hamas was storing weapons and munitions in hospitals and schools, preventing food and water from reaching civilians, The Center Square reported.

In January, UNRWA announced it had fired more than a dozen employees for participating in the Oct. 7 attack. But a coalition of attorneys general weren't convinced and called on Congress to defund UNRWA. Twenty-six AGs led by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said, “UNRWA's ties to terrorism are nothing new. UNRWA employed one school principal who moonlit as an Islamic Jihad bomber and another who was a Hamas commandant. One UNRWA school teacher is accused of detaining an October 7 hostage for nearly two months … [and] every UNRWA school the Israeli Defense Forces searched contained hidden weapons.”

Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. stopped all federal funding to UNRWA in 2018. President Joe Biden reinstated the funding on his first day in office. In his first term alone, U.S. taxpayers have funded UNRWA to the tune of $1 billion.

“For even a single taxpayer dollar to fund a corrupt organization that hires and harbors terrorists is despicable,” Bird said. “President Trump got it right when he stopped payments to UNRWA in 2018. It's the federal government's job to prosecute terrorists, not fund them. We're calling on Congress to take immediate action and defund UNRWA once and for all.”

On Tuesday, a second coalition of 23 AGs again called on Congress to fully defund UNRWA. “We call on Congress to stop funding this nascent and growing terror threat,” they said. “Radicalization in the Middle East today can lead to future attacks on the United States, our citizens, and our allies. Recognizing that, President Trump cut funding to UNRWA that was only restored after President Biden took office. Just as with the crisis at the border, President Biden should recognize that it is time to adopt the right policy of his predecessor.”

The coalition includes attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In addition to funding the UNRWA, Biden ignored calls by House and Senate Republicans to rescind visas of pro-Hamas individuals living in the U.S. Senate Democrats also blocked any attempt to deport Hamas sympathizers.

As Palestinians and pro-Hamas supporters increasingly called for the death of Jews, the annihilation of Israel, and Jewish Americans on college campuses were targeted with violence, Biden expanded measures to prevent “certain Palestinians” from being deported, The Center Square reported. He is also reportedly considering offering refugee status to Palestinians in the U.S. when nearly all Islamic countries will not take them. Neighboring Egypt fortified its wall and security forces to block illegal entry from Gaza.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has for months warned that Hamas and Islamic extremists could commit a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. More recently, he acknowledged that groups affiliated with ISIS were coming through the U.S. border, The Center Square reported.

This is after the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) have been apprehended illegally entering the U.S. under the current administration. Fiscal year 2024 through April 24, 235 KSTs have been apprehended, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The majority, by a margin of 2-1, are being apprehended at the northern border.

In fiscal 2023, 736 KSTs were apprehended nationwide – the greatest number in recorded U.S. history. The significant majority – 66%, or 487– were apprehended at the northern border.

(The Center Square) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced Monday she is leading a lawsuit with Mississippi, Montana and Idaho to fight the Biden Administration's new Title IX rules.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Western Louisiana, seeks the overturn of the rules on constitutional grounds, an injunction preventing the administration from enforcing Title IX “in accordance with erroneous interpretation” in the rule and attorney fees and court costs. 

The lawsuit says the rule is a “a naked attempt to strong-arm our schools into molding our children in the current federal government's preferred image of how a child should think, act and speak. The Final Rule is an affront to the dignity of families and school administrators everywhere and is nowhere close to legal.”

The lawsuit also says the new rule will “gut the very essence of Title IX and destroy decades of advances in equal educational opportunities, especially for women and girls.”

“With the stroke of a pen and 400 pages of rules written by would-be lawmakers in Washington, D.C. conference rooms, the DOE published Title IX regulations intended to remake American societal norms through classrooms, lunchrooms, bathrooms and locker rooms of American schools,” Murrill said at a Monday news conference with Gov. Jeff Landry. “Make no mistake: These rules eviscerate Title IX. They are entirely contrary to what Title IX was intended to achieve and what we have implemented and intended Title IX to mean and protect for 50 years.

“Title IX was intended to prevent pervasive discrimination against biological women.”

She also said the federal government's overreach was like a degree and dimension “like no other.” 

“Whatever lever, whatever power the governor's office has or the statutes vest in me, we will 100% be standing behind this Legislature, this attorney general and behind the BESE board because we do not intend to comply,” Landry said. “We are not going to pretend there is some kind of sexual category other than the ones the Almighty has set forth. There's only two of them. We look forward to this fight because this fight is right.”

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, who was flanked by some members of the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said that this was a “line in the sand issue and a bridge too far for the state of Louisiana” and voiced his support for the lawsuit. 

Title IX prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex in both educational programs and activities.

The new rules finalized by the Department of Education and which are supposed to go into effect Aug. 1. expand the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy, but the agency didn't issue any rules relating to transgender athletes. Among the changes include a prohibition on single-sex bathroom and locker rooms and requirements that a school use pronouns based on a student's preferred gender identity. 

(The Center Square) – Several Republican attorneys general have sued over the Biden administration's Title IX rule change, arguing it is illegal. More states are expected to follow.

The lawsuits come after the Biden administration's Department of Education rewrote the Title IX statute to expand the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity.”

Title IX, which is part of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Title IX was created to prohibit discrimination against women in all educational programs that receive federal money, including K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The new rule redefines biological sex and requires schools to allow men and boys, claiming to be women and girls, respectively, to use female-only facilities and join female-only sports or lose federal funding.

The lawsuits were filed after Republican governors and state education commissioners last week said their states would not comply.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was among the first to speak out, saying, “Florida rejects [president] Joe Biden's attempt to rewrite Title IX. We will not comply and we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women's activities … undermine the rights of parents and … abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida.”

On April 25, Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr., sent a letter to all superintendents and charter school leaders stating, “at Governor Ron DeSantis' direction no educational institution should begin implementing any changes. Instead of implementing Congress's clear directive to prevent discrimination based on biological sex, the Biden administration maims the statute beyond recognition in an attempt to gaslight the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning.”

The same day, Oklahoma's State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters also instructed Oklahoma schools not to comply, saying, “Biden's re-write of Title IX is one of the most illegal and radical moves we have ever seen from the Federal Government. Oklahoma will not sit idly by while radicals trample on the Constitution and take away women's rights. We are taking swift and aggressive action against Biden in his war on women.”

On Monday, Texas sued, arguing the rule is illegal. “Title IX does not apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But even if those concepts were protected against discrimination by Title IX, the Final Rule's provisions do not faithfully implement such protections because they mark as unlawful school policies that do not discriminate based on those concepts –  instead, the Final Rule requires schools to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity by allowing single-sex programs and facilities but requiring opposite-sex access to them for only those individuals with a transgender gender identity,” Texas' 30-page brief states.

The lawsuit asks a district court in north Texas to postpone the effective date of the rule, Aug. 1, declare the rule unlawful and permanently enjoin the Department of Education from implementing it.

Gov. Greg Abbott instructed the Texas Education Agency to ignore Biden's “illegal dictate.” He also wrote a letter to President Joe Biden, saying, “Title IX was written by Congress to support the advancement of women academically and athletically. The law was based on the fundamental premise that there are only two sexes – male and female. You have rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they are girls and to accept every student's self-declared gender identity. This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as President.”

Abbott said rewriting Title IX “tramples laws” that he signed to protect women's sports in Texas. Last year, Abbott and multiple Republican governors signed bills into law to protect women's and girls' sports.

A coalition of four Republican attorneys general, led by Louisiana, also sued on Monday. Mississippi, Montana and Idaho joined Louisiana, arguing in their 43-page brief that the rule “is an affront to the dignity of families and school administrators everywhere, and is nowhere close to legal.”

The lawsuit makes similar arguments as Texas' and asks a U.S. district court in Louisiana to declare the rule is contrary to law, violates Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, is an unlawful exercise of legislative power under Article 1 of the Constitution, is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and violates the Administrative Procedures Act.

The lawsuits were filed after a coalition of 15 attorneys general led by Montana AG Austin Knudsen, called on the DOE in 2022 to cancel its plans to rewrite Title IX, The Center Square reported.

Knudsen argues the rule “could cost Montana taxpayers money in civil lawsuits and the possible loss of federal funding in states that seek to protect equal opportunities for women and girls. It would also harm victims of sex discrimination and violence, as Title IX is used in grievance procedures to produce a fair outcome.”