Judge blocks 2 provisions in North Carolina's new abortion law

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge on Saturday blocked two portions of North Carolina's new abortion law from taking effect while a lawsuit continues. But nearly all of the restrictions approved by the legislature this year, including a near-ban after 12 weeks of pregnancy, aren't being specifically challenged and remain intact.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles issued an order halting enforcement of a provision to require surgical abortions that occur after 12 weeks — those for cases of rape and incest, for example — be performed only in hospitals, not abortion clinics. That limitation would have otherwise taken effect on Sunday.

And in the same preliminary injunction, Eagles extended beyond her temporary decision in June an order preventing enforcement of a rule that doctors must document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus before prescribing a medication abortion.

Short of successful appeals by Republican legislative leaders defending the laws, the order will remain in effect until a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician who performs abortions challenging the sections are resolved. The lawsuit also seeks to have clarified whether medications can be used during the second trimester to induce labor of a fetus that can’t survive outside the uterus.

The litigation doesn’t directly seek to topple the crux of the abortion law enacted in May after GOP legislators overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. North Carolina had a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks before July 1, when the law scaled it back to 12 weeks.

The law, a response to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade, also added new exceptions for abortions through 20 weeks for cases of rape and incest and through 24 weeks for “life-limiting” fetal anomalies. A medical emergency exception also stayed in place.

On medication abortions, which bill sponsors say also are permitted through 12 weeks of pregnancy, the new law says a physician prescribing an abortion-inducing drug must first “document in the woman’s medical chart the ... intrauterine location of the pregnancy.”

Eagles wrote the plaintiffs were likely to be successful on their claim that the law is so vague as to subject abortion providers to claims that they broke the law if they can't locate an embryo through an ultrasound because the pregnancy is so new.

“Providers cannot know if medical abortion is authorized at any point through the twelfth week, as the statute explicitly says, or if the procedure is implicitly banned early in pregnancy,” said Eagles, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Barack Obama.

And Eagles wrote the plaintiffs offered “uncontradicted" evidence that procedures for surgical abortions — also known as procedural abortions — after 12 weeks of pregnancy are the same as those used for managing miscarriages at that time period. Yet women with miscarriages aren't required to receive those procedures in the hospital, she added.

Republican legislative leaders defending the law in court “have offered no explanation or evidence — that is, no rational basis — for this differing treatment,” Eagles said in her order.

Abortion-rights advocates still opposed to the new 12-week restrictions praised Saturday's ruling.

“We applaud the court’s decision to block a few of the onerous barriers to essential reproductive health care that have no basis in medicine," said Dr. Beverly Gray, an OB-GYN and a named plaintiff in the case.

A spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger, one of the legislative defendants, said Saturday that Eagles’ order was still being reviewed.

Lawyers for Republican legislative leaders said in court documents in September that the provision requiring the documentation of an intrauterine pregnancy was designed to ensure the pregnancy was not ectopic, which can be dangerous. And “North Carolina rationally sought to help ensure the safety of women who may require hospitalization for complications from surgical abortions,” a legal brief from the lawmakers read.

State Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, abortion-rights supporter and 2024 candidate for governor, is officially a lawsuit defendant. But lawyers from his office asked Eagles to block the two provisions, largely agreeing with Planned Parenthood's arguments. Stein said Saturday he was encouraged by Eagles' ruling.

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Federal court temporarily blocks race-based grant program

A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily blocked a grant program for Black women-owned businesses.

American Alliance for Equal Rights, a nonprofit backed by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, sued the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund in August, alleging that the venture capital fund’s grant program violated the 1866 Civil Rights Act’s “guarantee of race neutrality” in making “contracts” by discriminating against other races.

The lawsuit follows a Supreme Court decision in June that struck down race-based affirmative action in higher education after challenges brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group also backed by Blum.

After a district court judge in Georgia refused to issue an injunction earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit granted the injunction in a 2-1 decision on Saturday. Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, both appointed by former President Donald Trump, were in favor. Charles Wilson, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, dissented.

The targeted program intends to support Black women-owned businesses by awarding grants and providing mentorship and business support services — however, in the Saturday opinion, the judges said that it was “substantially likely” that the program was illegal.

Blum has filed similar suits against several businesses that he says use the same kind of racial classifications previously used in higher education admissions — such programs are likely the next target for conservative legal activism.

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History Offers Democrats a Way Out of the Menendez Problem

Senator Robert Menendez had a bad week.

A New Jersey Democrat currently serving his third full term in the Senate, Menendez was indicted last Thursday by federal prosecutors who laid out an elaborate and damning case involving secret payments funneled through an American-based businessman, all tracing back to favors the senator allegedly performed on behalf of the Egyptian government.

Even for New Jersey, which a 2014 Harvard study named one of the two most politically corrupt states in the country, the details are eye-popping. Cash totaling almost half a million dollars stuffed into closets, drawers and clothes in Menendez’s home. Gold bars, the price of which the senator allegedly searched on the internet, totaling $100,000 in value. A Mercedes Benz.

Menendez is a notorious political brawler who has survived scandal before — in 2017, a jury deadlocked on corruption charges that could have sent him to prison for years. But his luck seems to have run out, with party leaders in New Jersey abandoning him in droves — particularly the state’s all-powerful county chairs, who largely determine the outcome of primary elections — and national Democrats like Sen. John Fetterman (Penn.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) calling on him to resign.

In short, Menendez is done. Regardless of his legal fortunes, he’s not going to be renominated next year. But what about the remainder of this term? If history is an indication, that is entirely up to his colleagues in the Senate.

The Senate has not expelled a member of its body since 1862, during the Civil War. In modern times, only the threat of expulsion has compelled Senators to resign, rather than face the indignity of seeing their colleagues toss them out by vote. Several of those historical examples suggest that it’s possible for Senate Democrats to unhinge Menendez from his seat, but it won’t necessarily happen quickly.

No example proves this point better than the case of Harrison “Pete” Williams, the disgraced New Jersey politician who was convicted of crimes related to the famous ABSCAM case. Ironically, Bob Menendez currently fills the same seat that Williams ultimately resigned.

Between 1978 and 1980 the FBI conducted a sting operation in which agents posed as Arab businessmen and offered cash bribes to 31 elected officials. Ultimately, one senator and six House members took the bait.

Williams, a four-term Senator and leading liberal in Congress, was the highest-ranking official to go down. In a bizarre and intricate scheme, he agreed to help an undercover FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik to resolve hurdles in his U.S. immigration process in return for the sheik and his friends making a $100 million cash infusion in a mining business in which Williams held a secret 18 percent stake. Williams and his associates would then sell their interest to a second group of (fake) businessmen at a $70 million profit.

The parallels between the Williams and Menendez cases are striking. While Williams never had the opportunity to stash cash and gold in his home — after all, there was no deal to be had; it was a sting — both men were alleged to have funneled foreign payments through real companies (in the Menendez case, through a halal meat enterprise; in Williams’ case, a mining operation). Both men also allegedly turned their corruption into a family enterprise. Where Menendez’s wife has been indicted alongside her husband, FBI tapes showed that Williams boasted to undercover agents of an earlier scheme in which he pressured the state’s casino authorities to approve a deal that benefited a company that employed his wife in a low- or no-show job.

ABSCAM was somewhat controversial. Lawyers for the defense argued it was a classic case of entrapment, and in the case of Williams, there was something to the argument. During an initial encounter with the undercover agents, Williams seemed to demur. It took several months to get him on board. But once on board, he exhibited little compunction about profiting from his office and boasted frequently to agents of his past criminality.

When federal prosecutors indicted Williams in 1980, the Democratic-controlled Senate launched and then promptly suspended an official investigation, on the premise that such a parallel procedure would prejudice his criminal trial. But in May 1981, when a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts, the Senate, now in Republican control, opened hearings. It took roughly three months for the Ethics Committee to vote unanimously for a resolution to expel Williams, and over the course of the year, Williams, who was appealing his conviction, tangled with his colleagues in federal court over their right to expel him and the proper scope of a full Senate trial.

It didn’t help his case that he was unrepentant. To his dying day, Williams would claim he was convicted of a “dishonest crime,” meaning he was entrapped, because “somebody else creates the situation for which you are convicted.”

When one of Williams’ defenders, Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, recommended that the body censure, rather than expel their colleague, arguing that expulsion had traditionally been reserved for cases of treason and insurrection, his Democratic colleague, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, answered in disgust: “If non-treasonous behavior be the sole benchmark of fitness to serve in this body, then one must ask how fit is this body in which we serve?” Eagleton emerged as one of Williams’ most vocal critics and argued that if the convicted politician wouldn’t do them the dignity of vacating his seat, “we should not perpetrate our own disgrace by asking him to stay.”

Ultimately, Williams ran down the clock. Only when his appeals were rejected in late 1981 and only when it became clear that the Senate would expel him on a bipartisan basis, did he relent. In March 1982 — more than two years after his initial indictment — he resigned his seat.

That’s not a story that augurs well for a speedy outcome in the Menendez case. While good money suggests his Senate days are numbered, Menendez is likely to hold on for as long as possible, if for no other reason than to maintain negotiating leverage with prosecutors and to raise money for his defense. He will become an albatross around the necks of fellow New Jersey Democrats and House and Senate colleagues in tough races. His presence in the Senate makes it all the harder for Democrats to build a case against GOP corruption next year.

More recent examples don’t suggest a different outcome. In November 1992, multiple women accused Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) of sexual misconduct. It took almost three years for a long ethics process to unwind — one that did little credit to Packwood or to the Senate. Facing the likelihood of expulsion, in October 1995, Packwood finally resigned. The same was true of Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican who allegedly arranged illegal hush payments and a lobbying job for a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. It took almost two years after the first revelations of misconduct before Ensign agreed to resign, and again, only because his colleagues seemed prepared to expel him.

All of which means, it’s in the Senate Democrats’ hands. They can drag it out, or they can expedite expulsion proceedings and make it clear to Menendez that he can leave quietly out the back door, or they can toss him out the front in full light of day.

Everyone deserves their moment in court, but there is a difference between legal and political proceedings.

Bob Menendez deserves the opportunity to explain to his colleagues how, on a senator’s salary, he came to possess a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible (sticker price, $60,000) and $100,000 in gold bars, to say nothing of envelopes of cash bearing the fingerprints of his co-defendants. He should also have the opportunity to explain why he presumably never reported these assets or paid taxes on them. But the Senate doesn’t need to wait for his criminal trial to unfold before initiating its own investigation, and it shouldn’t take months for such a process to play out. There is evidence in abundance that allows for a speedy resolution of his ethics case and a vote on the Senate floor.

The modern record suggests that embattled Senators will cling to their seats tenaciously, only until they know the die has been cast. Chuck Schumer and his caucus have a job to do. History shows them exactly how to get it done.

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Second GOP debate ratings: Viewership drops by more than 25 percent

Ratings for the second Republican presidential debate Wednesday are in — and the 26 percent decline is not a good sign for candidates not named Donald Trump.

Around 9.5 million people tuned into the debate, which was broadcast on Fox Business Network and simultaneously played on Fox News, where most people tuned in, and Univision, the network said Thursday. In comparison, almost 13 million people watched the first debate, which Fox hosted at the end of August.

The falling viewership comes alongside seemingly tepid appetites from Republican primary voters to choose anyone other than Trump, who despite facing dozens of criminal charges has stood head and shoulders above the rest of the field in polling. The former president has refused to show up for the debates and has run counterprogramming for both of the events so far — he first chatted with Tucker Carlson on X, and then he visited automobile workers in Michigan this week.

His campaign has already said he would not attend the next scheduled debate, which is slated for Miami at the beginning of November. Running his race like an incumbent, Trump has already set his eyes toward tackling President Joe Biden over the other candidates in the field, issuing a message on abortion that has drawn some ire from the most conservative parts of his party.

Trump has held a monumental lead in the polls throughout much of the race — leading his second-placing candidate, almost always Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 30 or more points in most surveys — and the first debate did little to change the dynamic.

Back in 2015, when Trump was a fresh novelty in the Republican Party and the race was perceived as much more competitive, primary debates set viewership records left and right. The first primary debate of the 2016 cycle drew 24 million watchers, and the second had slightly lower viewership at 23 million. In fact, all 12 debates of that primary cycle, from August 2015 to March 2016, had more than 11 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Before the second debate even ended Wednesday night, Trump’s campaign put out a statement pushing for the end of the events, calling them a waste of time that would not change the race's trajectory.

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The case for panicking over Biden’s reelection campaign

Should Democrats be wetting the bed over President Joe Biden's chances of winning reelection?

Depends on who you ask. Some in the party are truly panicked. Others are begging their compatriots to take a deep breath.

To find out who has the more compelling case, West Wing Playbook asked one person on each side of the debate to make it. Today we present to you the side of panic through an interview with Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who has encouraged other Democrats to challenge Biden in a primary and has thought about getting in the race himself.

On Friday, we will have a Q&A with a Democrat making the case for calm. So don’t @ us just yet.

Yes or no: do you think Biden can win the 2024 race?

Yes, he could win. But the question is, are there others who might be better positioned to win assuming that the eventual GOP nominee is going to be Donald Trump? We should not be sugarcoating or diverting attention from the polling data — we should be digesting it while there’s still time to course correct.

OK, you think he can win. But you also think he could lose?

Yes, I’m one of tens of millions of Americans who have that very legitimate concern.

Do you view the recent Washington Post-ABC poll as an outlier? Or a major warning sign?

If that’s not a warning sign, and a wake up call, and a red alert, I don’t know what would be.

While there’s still time, we should let Americans decide who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump because clearly the data is saying a majority of Americans do not believe, unfortunately, that it is President Biden.

Do you think this is mostly an age issue for him?

I’m trying to focus just on what the numbers are saying. The numbers are saying that despite successful policy implementation, despite navigating through some difficult years, that people are not pleased.

Why is that? If the policies are all there, what more can he do? 

It’s not a failure of policy. We’ve outperformed, I think, every OECD country in the world. But what we have to do better is to express empathy and understanding that people are not feeling that.

Democrats are always worried about elections. Why is this time any different? 

We’re somewhat sleepwalking into a repeat of 2016. That was a time when we thought Hillary Clinton was going to win. It was close, but she was always ahead. And now, no matter what one thinks of polling and surveys at this stage of a race, what is fundamentally different is that the president — at best — is tied, and more likely is slightly behind. 

Some Democrats think the party needs to chill out and stop panicking. Are they off the mark?

In my professional life, both in the public sector and private sector, chilling out has never been a recipe for success in addressing any problem. Thoughts and prayers don’t solve gun violence, they don’t give people homes or food — and chilling out does not make for electoral success.

It was hard to get someone to do this Q&A. People didn’t want to be on the record ringing the alarm bell. Why do you think that is?

Sadly, too many are focused on their own professional futures and not focused enough on our country’s future at a time when we really, really need that. 

Has all of this just been about raising your own profile?

I don’t think many would recommend this course of action to simply raise one’s profile in a system that rewards people who stay quiet and stay in line and sit down and shush up. 

So you’re running? 

I’ve still continued to encourage those who are more proximate and prepared to run a compelling campaign to jump in because we need you now — not in 2028. But if no one is willing to do so, I might.

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What does Matt Gaetz really want?

What is Matt Gaetz's endgame: spending cuts, a political boost, or revenge?

It’s the question reverberating on Capitol Hill after the simmering feud between the Florida conservative and Speaker Kevin McCarthy flared up again Thursday morning in a closed-door meeting, with one lawmaker telling Gaetz to “fuck off” for leveling unproven accusations against the speaker. Gaetz has threatened to force a vote on booting McCarthy for weeks, publicly called him “pathetic” and accused him of lying multiple times.

Hill Republicans, when granted anonymity to speak candidly, say they don't believe Gaetz when he insists it "isn't personal” (though rank-and-file GOP lawmakers are quick to add they don’t know what has set off the Florida Republican).

Some in the GOP chalk it up to Gaetz seeking a future foothold as a conservative TV pundit, others to a desire for name recognition ahead of his widely expected gubernatorial bid in 2026. Still others say he’s sincere in his demands for more spending cuts before voting to fund the government.

The speaker hasn't publicly weighed in. But in private, McCarthy has questioned what he could have done to trigger this level of hostility from Gaetz, according to a longtime ally of the speaker. Other McCarthy allies have theorized that Gaetz's fury dates back to a now-closed Justice Department inquiry into sex trafficking allegations, when some in the House GOP came just short of openly celebrating his potential political demise.

Gaetz denied that he faults McCarthy for anything related to that probe: “No, I think that was all handled fine,” he told POLITICO in a brief interview.

Still, calling Gaetz a thorn in McCarthy’s side would be an understatement. The Floridian has repeatedly threatened to call for a vote to strip the speaker's gavel if he works with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. He’s the most vocal among the conservatives who have sworn to oppose any stopgap plan to keep the government's lights on, and while he's not in the House Freedom Caucus, he counts many of its most obstreperous members as frequent allies.

McCarthy knows a long shutdown imperils his hold on his thin majority come 2025 — and the threat of a challenge to his speakership before the crisis is over looms large. Which Gaetz is openly, repeatedly, pushing for.

The Californian pointedly declined to criticize Gaetz during the federal sex trafficking probe that ensnared him. But in recent weeks, as their relationship curdled, McCarthy has occasionally hurled his own accusations back at Gaetz — while shrugging off the threats with “Matt is Matt.”

The speaker alleged to reporters earlier this month that the conservative was working against him alongside Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), referring to frustration over an unspecified ethics complaint.

Their tense relationship began affecting the entire House GOP more than a year ago, when the Floridian vowed to nominate former President Donald Trump for speaker. That clear message of no confidence in McCarthy shortly thereafter translated into open resistance on the floor throughout January’s speakership election.

Gaetz never cast a ballot for McCarthy, remaining one of six conservatives who — only after 14 failed rounds — agreed to vote “present” in order to let the Californian claim the top gavel. Now, he insists that his repeated antagonizing of the speaker has everything to do with holding McCarthy to the promises he made during that standoff, including bringing all 12 individual spending bills to the House floor.

“It’s based on the terms of the January agreement. If Kevin comes into compliance with the January agreement, he doesn’t have any problems. If he continues to be out of compliance with the January agreement, he’s got problems,” Gaetz said, though he's publicly acknowledged that some of the priorities he's demanded from McCarthy would likely fail in floor votes.

Immediately after the tense Thursday meeting, Gaetz brushed off reporters' questions on whether he was ready to force a vote to boot McCarthy from the speakership. He maintained that his “principal goal” is passing the individual spending bills the House GOP has struggled to clear this week.

Some members believe there’s more on Gaetz’s mind, however. The Florida conservative has already built significant name recognition as McCarthy’s foil, and Republicans see Gaetz as someone who likes to punch up for political gain — he's rumored to be eyeing Florida's governorship in 2026, when Gov. Ron DeSantis is termed out.

That means allying himself with other gadflies, more so than just a partnership with hardliners in the Freedom Caucus. Some Republicans noted Gaetz’s defense of former Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), both progressives who have clashed with their own leadership, as a further sign he aligns himself with self-styled outsiders.

“I just really think that one person wants a lot of attention. It may not be all that personal. It is maybe made-up to be personal,” GOP Rep. Carlos Giménez said of his fellow Floridian, later clarifying that the attention-seeker he referenced was not McCarthy.

“I think [Gaetz] is just using that as a vehicle to run for governor, and he thinks that the one way to go lift his profile is becoming this rebel,” Giménez added, describing his motivations as “despicable” either way.

Gaetz, or “Baby Gaetz” as he is known back in Florida, jumped from the state legislature to D.C. in 2017, where he’d quickly trade in a bipartisan record for a reputation as a populist Donald Trump defender. It was a reinvention he almost openly boasted about in a 2019 interview with the New York Times — saying that in the current political landscape “you’ve got to have the ability to reinvent yourself in this game many times.”

It's a strategy that’s worked well so far. In addition to the media attention he gets for his spat with McCarthy, Gaetz also earns positive feedback about it from his anti-establishment conservative base in Florida — a key demographic if he wants to take the governorship in a few years.

Asked about the Gaetz-McCarthy fight, Don Gaetz, the Florida congressman's father and a former state senator with considerable influence, said "there is no personal animus between him and Speaker McCarthy. What you see from Matt is what you are getting."

Gary Fineout contributed to this report.

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Adams: NYC policy to shelter the homeless shouldn't cover migrant influx

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams suggested Thursday he wants to exempt the influx of migrants from the city's decades-old right-to-shelter mandate as his administration tightens the length on shelter stays and explicitly discourages new arrivals.

“I don't believe the right to shelter applies to a migrant crisis,” Adams said during an appearance on WABC’s "Sid & Friends in the Morning," referring to a mandate dating back to 1981 that the city provide shelter beds to anyone in need.

He was responding to a decision from a Staten Island judge earlier this week that referred to the shelter guarantee as “an anachronistic relic from the past” that was “intended to address a problem as different from today's dilemma as night and day."

The mayor appeared to agree with that sentiment, even as his administration plans to appeal the larger order from Judge Wayne Ozzi, which blocked a migrant shelter in Staten Island.

“Our team is looking at exactly what we're going to do with the ruling,” the mayor said. “There are parts of the ruling we may — and that's may — agree with. We're going to examine that."

Adams’ comments come as the city moves to seek relief from the right-to-shelter mandate in court and further restricts how long migrants can stay in shelters.

The administration is now limiting shelter stays for new arrivals to 30 days, down from a 60-day limit the city began imposing in July. Migrants can still return to the arrival center for a new time-restricted placement if they have nowhere to go at the end of that period.

The moving target has sowed confusion among asylum-seekers, advocates and elected officials said, as the city looks to limit the surge of more than 110,000 migrants who have come to the city since 2022.

“We saw that people were confused by the messages that they got about what was supposed to happen when they got to the end of whatever time limit they had,” said Joshua Goldfein, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society, which serves in a watchdog role over the right-to-shelter mandate.

“It doesn’t make sense to put an arbitrary time limit on when somebody is getting services.”

Others say the migrant-specific restrictions are a slippery slope toward weakening hard-fought shelter requirements that keep homeless New Yorkers off the streets.

“The intent here is to illegally get as many of them out as possible by utilizing loopholes that allow them to do that,” Council Member Diana Ayala, chair of the committee overseeing the shelter system, said in an interview.

“My concern is that we’re going to start with eliminating out-of-towners and people from out of the state, and then what? Then we move to New Yorkers?” Ayala said. Speaking of shelter conditions, she added, “They’re just trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible so folks not only don’t come here, but exit on their own.”

Discouraging new arrivals has become an increasingly explicit goal of migrant policies enacted by the Adams administration.

Officials released new fliers Wednesday that they plan to hand out at the border, which note that asylum-seekers in New York City “are now getting letters to move out of the shelter” and warn newcomers that they will not be placed in a hotel. It also notes that the city “cannot help you obtain a work permit,” and that migrants “will not be able to easily find work.”

“NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world; you are better off going to a more affordable city,” the flier reads.

“We definitely do want to discourage people from coming here so that we can pretty much deal with the 113,000 people that are in our system right now,” Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said at a briefing on the issue Wednesday. “We want to be responsible and tell people the truth about what they're walking into.”

There are upward of 61,000 asylum-seekers currently in the city’s care, and more than 3,000 entered the city’s care just last week, officials said.

Several hundred migrants have hit the 60-day limits since last week, when the policy went into effect, according to Ted Long, senior vice president at New York City Health + Hospitals, which is running some of the migrant facilities.

From last Friday to early this week, “less than half of those still under our care on day 61 needed to come back to the arrival center for another placement,” Long told reporters Wednesday. City Hall did not respond to a request for more specific figures.

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