Today, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals directed the District court to block California’s AB 32, a state law signed in 2019 which banned private prisons and private immigration detention centers in the state. This same federal district court judge, Janis Sammartino, had largely upheld the law last year, but a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit - including two Trump appointees - reversed that decision today. The State of California now has the option of either appealing the decision to a larger “en banc” panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit or asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.