A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s sanctions against a United Nations official who has faced accusations of antisemitism over her calls for war crimes charges against Israeli officials over their actions in Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed the sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, last July under an executive order President Donald Trump signed authorizing such actions against people “directly engaged” in the International Criminal Court’s investigations related to alleged atrocities in Gaza.
However, in a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the administration’s sanctions against Albanese violate the First Amendment because they’re based solely on her encouraging the ICC to investigate and prosecute.
“Albanese has done nothing more than speak!” Leon wrote in a 26-page decision salted with his trademark exclamation points. “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions — they are nothing more than her opinion.”
Justice Department lawyers argued that Albanese, an Italian citizen currently living with her family in Tunisia, has no First Amendment claim because she isn’t an American and she issued her statements from abroad. However, Leon said her “extensive connections” to the U.S., including a daughter born while the family lived in Washington and a home the family owns in Washington, gave Albanese a claim to free-speech protections.
Albanese and her husband have complained that the U.S. sanctions designation essentially froze them out of the international banking network, made it impossible for them to travel to the U.S. and even led the family’s health insurer to deny payment for services received by Albanese.
The Trump administration argued that licenses it issued allowing some transactions related to the family’s Washington property, as well as to provide “necessary” support for their U.S. citizen daughter, mitigated the impact of the sanctions.
“Please!” the judge responded, calling the scope of those licenses too murky to give the U.S. government legal cover against the lawsuit filed in February by Albanese’s husband, World Bank economist Massimiliano Cali, and their daughter.
Leon also found that the “parental license” the U.S. government issued interferes with Albanese’s “constitutionally protected” relationship with her daughter. “It is not clear from the record before me how plaintiffs would distinguish between necessary and unnecessary transactions in the context of their family relationships,” the judge wrote.
Rubio’s designation of Albanese alleged she’d “spewed unabashed antisemitism.” She’s denied that and contends that some in Israel are using claims of antisemitism to justify war crimes. The Israeli government denies committing war crimes in Gaza and has denounced the International Criminal Court process as hopelessly biased.
The White House referred a request for comment to the State Department, which did not immediately respond. The Justice Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Albanese said in a statement that Leon’s ruling had vindicated her trust in the American justice system.
The ruling “that the sanctions appear to infringe on U.S. constitutional rights proves me right,” she said. “I am so grateful to my little daughter, L.C. and her amazing dad for taking the risk, and everyone who has come forward to help.”
