AP —
The Justice Department has moved to dismiss its criminal case against a labor union leader who was arrested while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in California.
The US attorney’s office in Los Angeles filed a motion Monday to dismiss its case against David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union California, which has more than 750,000 members including janitors, security officers and other workers. The government will seek to have the case permanently withdrawn within weeks if Huerta continues to comply with the terms of his pretrial release and stays out of trouble, prosecutors said.
Huerta said in a statement that he was tackled, pepper-sprayed and detained for exercising his constitutional rights to protest and cast the case against him as part of a broader “weaponization of the judicial system.”
“There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights,” he said in a statement. “I will keep exercising my constitutional rights and protest every abuse this administration commits, and I will keep working to build a country that treats immigrant families and all workers with the dignity they deserve.”
