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An internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) memo obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and shared with Fox News Digital prohibits agents from using “he, him, she, her” pronouns when initially interacting with members of the public.

“DO NOT use ‘he, him, she, her’ pronouns until you have more information about, or provided by, the individual,” reads the memo obtained by Heritage via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Oversight Project Director Mike Howell told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday that the “members of the public” who border patrol agents most often interact with are illegal migrants.

“Border Patrol deals with more illegal aliens than any entity in the federal government. This forced language guidance is designed to coddle illegal aliens,” Howell said.

THOUSANDS OF CHINESE NATIONALS, GOTAWAYS AT SOUTHERN BORDER SINCE OCT 1: SOURCES

“I guess it wasn’t enough for the Biden administration to betray the Border Patrol by purposefully unleashing chaos on the southern border,” Howell said. “Now, the radical political leadership is enrolling agents in a forced-speech program to call illegal aliens by their preferred pronouns.”

CBP did not respond to Fox News Digital’s multiple requests for comment.

The memo encourages agents to use “a universal greeting, such as ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Good Evening’ in the initial greeting.”

“If an incorrect pronoun is used and corrected by the individual, acknowledge the oversight and use the correct pronoun,” the memo reads.

It also lists “key terms” with definitions next to each: bisexual, gay, gender expression, gender identity, gender non-conforming, intersex, lesbian, non-binary, queer, questioning, sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, transgender, transgender woman, transgender man and transitioning are all listed.

NEW ‘ORWELLIAN’ HHS PRONOUN MANDATE FORCES EMPLOYEES TO ‘DENY REALITY,’ VIOLATE LAW: LEGAL EXPERT

“This job aid provides guidance to all CBP employees who interact with members of the public to help facilitate effective communication with the diverse public we serve, including individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, non-binary, and gender nonconforming (LGBTQI+),” the memo’s introduction reads, adding that the guidance “should be used by all CBP employees.”

It also notes that the terms and definitions “are not universal” and that some LGBTQ individuals “may define these terms differently and the meanings of the terms may change over time.”

DEMI LOVATO REVEALS WHY USING THEY/THEM PRONOUNS WAS ‘ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTING’

Howell said CBP “should be allowed to do their job and prevent all illegal immigration, not used as pawns in some sick social experiment.”

The memo follows an earlier report by Heritage’s Oversight Project that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rolled out a similar gender pronoun guideline.

“All employees should be addressed [by] the names and pronouns they use to describe themselves,” the reported email to HHS employees stated as part of its push for “Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination Guidance,” which it says protects “employee rights and protections related to gender identity.”

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report. 

A new voting rights case bubbling up to the Supreme Court has the potential to transform how voting rights are litigated in the courts.

On Monday, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act – which prohibits the “denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color through voting qualifications or prerequisites” – does not explicitly grant a private right of action.

In other words, the Eighth Circuit decided that individuals or advocacy groups who believe a state is violating a voter’s rights can’t bring a lawsuit – only the federal government can do so. In the case in question, the court said a local NAACP group in Arkansas, which is suing the state over redistricting maps that the group says discriminated against Black voters, needs to convince the Justice Department to take up their case.

“Did Congress give private plaintiffs the ability to sue under [Section 2] of the Voting Rights Act? Text and structure reveal that the answer is no, so we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss,” the ruling states.

Legal experts told Fox News Digital that the case is likely to make its way up to the highest court in the land, giving the nine justices the opportunity to examine the Voting Rights Act in a presidential election year.

SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF BLACK VOTERS IN ALABAMA RACIAL GERRYMANDERING CASE

“Justice [Neil] Gorsuch had indicated that this is a significant issue, and the Eighth Circuit just agreed that there isn’t a private right of action. Resolution of this question is clearly headed to the Supreme Court for resolution,” Jason Torchinsky, a partner at Holzman Vogel and an expert in election law, told Fox News Digital.

Monday’s ruling applies only to federal courts covered by the Eighth Circuit, which includes Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

But there are several pending lawsuits by private groups that are challenging political maps drawn by legislators across the country.

In 2021, Gorsuch, who lawyers refer to as a “textualist,” indicated that at some point the Supreme Court needs to decide if Congress assumed a private right to action in the Voting Rights Act or not.

SUPREME COURT APPEARS TO LEAN IN FAVOR OF UPHOLDING GOP-DRAWN SOUTH CAROLINA CONGRESSIONAL MAP

“I join the court’s opinion in full, but flag one thing it does not decide,” Gorsuch wrote at the time, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. “Our cases have assumed — without deciding — that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 furnishes an implied cause of action under section 2.”

Mike Dimino, law professor at Widener University Commonwealth Law School in Pennsylvania, said the difficulty with the Eighth Circuit’s argument is that “the Supreme Court’s attitude in the mid-’60s was much more open to the creation of a private right of action where a statute was ambiguous.”

“If you’re in Congress, and you’re writing a statute in the mid-’60s, you look at the Supreme Court’s precedent at the time, and you say, ‘All right, well, this is what the Supreme Court does,'” Dimino said. 

“But the statute has gone on now for more than 55 years, and the Supreme Court hasn’t decided squarely whether these suits are available or not,” he said.

Dimino says he believes it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would affirm the Eighth Circuit’s decision should it decide to take up the case.

HIGH-PROFILE SUPREME COURT CASES TO WATCH IN 2023-2024

The Legal Defense Fund, a civil rights group, criticized the Eighth Circuit’s decision by saying that it means “[i]ndividuals who experience voting discrimination on account of their race will be prevented from suing under the Voting Rights Act (VRA)’s critical Section 2 provisions to vindicate them and must instead rely on the discretion and limited resources of the U.S. Attorney General.”

The group also called the ruling “a stark departure from six decades of decisions in hundreds of Section 2 cases,” pointing to the recent Supreme Court case Allen v. Milligan.

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In that case, which was decided this year, a 5-4 majority affirmed a lower court decision that ruled in favor of Black voters in Alabama who challenged the state’s GOP-friendly map, concluding the state likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Should the Eighth Circuit case be petitioned to the Supreme Court, it could set up a timeline for the case to be decided during a presidential election year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As he aims to be the last challenger standing against former President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Chris Christie’s turning up the volume on two other rivals.

Christie’s amplifying criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is for not vigorously targeting Trump, who remains the faraway front-runner for the GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White House run.

“Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have not made the case against him. They refuse to make the case against him. They’re scared to make the case against him,” Christie charged in a Fox News Digital interview on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

And Christie, a very vocal Republican critic of Trump, touted that “the one thing people say about me is I’m not.”

POPULAR GOP GOVERNOR IN A CRUCIAL PRIMARY STATE TEAMS UP WITH CHRISTIE, HALEY AND DESANTIS

DeSantis and Haley are currently battling for second place in the latest national surveys in the 2024 Republican race and in the most recent surveys in Iowa, whose caucuses lead off the GOP nominating calendar. 

As Christie runs a second time for the White House, he’s once again concentrating most of his time and resources on New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in the Republican schedule and votes second after Iowa. Christie is currently in third place in New Hampshire polls, far behind Trump and slightly trailing Haley.

Christie placed all his chips in his campaign for president eight years ago in the Granite State. However, his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary, boosting him toward the nomination and eventually the White House. 

CHRISTIE VOWS TO ‘CONFRONT’ TRUMP IF FORMER PRESIDENT DOESN’T DEBATE

Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump and for years was a top outside adviser to the then-president and chaired Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden. In the past three years, Christie has become one of the harshest Trump critics in the Republican Party.

Christie, who for months has pledged to seek out and confront Trump on the campaign trail, said “I think the one person Donald Trump doesn’t want to have a one-on-one with is me.”

“He’s not afraid of Nikki Haley,” Christie argued. “And he certainly made his feelings about Ron DeSantis known. He doesn’t look like he’s very intimidated by him. But the fact is, you don’t hear him saying that stuff about me. He doesn’t want to be on that stage with me.”

DESANTIS LANDS THE ENDORSEMENT OF A TOP EVANGELICAL LEADER IN IOWA 

Christie teamed up Monday night at a town hall in Nashua, New Hampshire, with Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who also joined Haley and DeSantis on the campaign trail in the Granite State this week. 

Sununu, a popular governor who’s also an outspoken Trump critic, has said he’ll make an endorsement in the GOP nomination race sometime after Thanksgiving, and that it’s down to Haley, DeSantis or Christie.

Asked about the case he’s making to Sununu, Christie told Fox News: “who does he want standing across from Donald Trump when this gets down to a one-on-one? Who does he think can take him on in a direct way? Who’s been saying the same things as Chris Sununu has been saying for the last couple of years about Donald Trump, trying to move the party in a new direction? And I think I’m the person who has the clearest, strongest voice on that.”

Christie said that he needs to do “well” in New Hampshire’s primary to be successful in his long-shot bid for the 2024 nomination. Asked to define what “well” means, Christie answered, “No. I can’t define it. I’ll know it when I see it and we’ll see what it looks like.”

“If I don’t think I’ve done well enough, I’d get out,” Christie emphasized. “I’m not somebody who’s going to linger here. This is hard work, and you’ve got to get up out of bed every morning and feel like you have a chance to win. And if that moment comes where I don’t feel like I have a chance to win, I’m not going to elongate a campaign just for the sake of doing it.”

But he added: “I’m convinced that I’m going to do very well here. And I’m going to be the last one standing against Donald Trump and I’m going to take this right to the convention because he’s going to be convicted of federal crimes of interference of our election process this spring.”

CHRISTIE JEERED AS HE TELLS TRUMP SUPPORTERS THEY ‘FEAR THE TRUTH’ AT FLORIDA REPUBLICAN GATHERING

Trump has made history as the first former or current president to be indicted for a crime, but his four indictments – including in federal court in Washington, D.C. and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss – have only fueled his support among Republican voters.

Christie’s a longtime friend of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, dating back to their days as fellow governors. Manchin, a moderate Democrat in a heavily red state, announced earlier this month that he wouldn’t seek re-election to the Senate next year and instead is mulling a potential third-party run for the White House.

“Joe and I had dinner together about ten days ago in D.C. It was great to see him,” Christie shared. “We had a great dinner together on his boat in the Potomac. He’s been a great friend for 14 years now, and I suspect that whatever happens in the upcoming year, we’re going to continue to be great friends.”

But Christie ruled out teaming up with Manchin in any possible third-party presidential bid.

“I’m committed to winning the Republican nomination for president. I have no interest in being a third-party candidate,” Christie told Fox News. “Joe can do whatever it is he wants to do. Everyone’s got to make their own decision. My decision is the only interest I have is being the Republican nominee for president because I think that’s the best chance I have to win.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, announced Tuesday that he is retiring from Congress to accept an offer to become president of Youngstown State University.

Johnson, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2010, will continue in his role as a lawmaker for several more months before starting as president of Youngstown State University in March.

“After much thought and prayerful deliberation, I have accepted the offer to lead Youngstown State University and will not be seeking an 8th term in Congress,” Johnson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “As I’ve stated previously, I wasn’t looking for another job, because I love the one I have serving the people of Eastern Ohio in the U.S. House. This was an extremely difficult decision.”

“This is not a goodbye, however. I will continue serving in the House for several more months, and you will see no let up,” the outgoing congressman continued. “My offices are open and my staff remains ready to serve you.”

TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY INCREASES TUITION, MEANING IT COSTS LESS TO ATTEND HARVARD

The Youngstown State University Board of Trustees voted 8-1 on Tuesday to offer Johnson his new job as president of the institution.

Johnson, 69, will succeed former Ohio State University football head coach Jim Tressel, who left as Youngstown president in February. Helen K. Lafferty is currently serving as the university’s interim president.

“There is still much left on my agenda to do before I depart Congress, including doing all I can to help pass tax exemption legislation to benefit the people of East Palestine as well as a broader rail safety bill, streamline America’s LNG export process, and advance a responsible budget and spending package for the remainder of this fiscal year. It’s business as usual,” Johnson wrote in his statement on X.

OHIO DEMOCRAT UNDER INVESTIGATION AFTER ALLEGATIONS OF ‘ERRATIC AND ABUSIVE’ BEHAVIOR

The Ohio lawmaker represents the state’s sixth congressional district, which covers the East Palestine area where a Norfolk Southern train derailed in February, resulting in black smoke blanketing the village and hazardous chemicals spilling into the community’s soil and water.

The filing deadline for congressional candidates to submit signed petitions to run in party primaries for the two-year term that starts January 2025 is Dec. 20, and the primary election will be held in Ohio on March 19. 

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine will decide if and when to schedule a special election to select someone to replace Johnson in Congress for the rest of 2024.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Maryland’s handgun licensing law, finding that its requirements, which include submitting fingerprints for a background check and taking a four-hour firearms safety course, are unconstitutionally restrictive.

In a 2-1 ruling, judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond said they considered the case in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law.”

The underlying lawsuit was filed in 2016 as a challenge to a Maryland law requiring people to obtain a special license before purchasing a handgun. The law, which was passed in 2013 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, laid out a series of necessary steps for would-be gun purchasers: completing four hours of safety training that includes firing one live round, submitting fingerprints and passing a background check, being 21 and residing in Maryland.

MAINE’S ‘YELLOW FLAG’ LAW INVOKED OVER A DOZEN TIMES SINCE LEWISTON SHOOTING SPREE

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said he was disappointed in the circuit court’s ruling and will “continue to fight for this law.” He said his administration is reviewing the ruling and considering its options.

“Common-sense gun laws are critical to protecting all Marylanders from the gun violence that has terrorized our communities.” Moore said in a statement Tuesday. “I am determined to do more than just give thoughts and prayers and attend funerals — and that’s why this law is vital to our administration’s commitment to keeping guns out of the wrong hands and saving lives.”

The 4th Circuit opinion by Judge Julius Richardson directly references the Supreme Court decision last year that found Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. That ruling, which also came after a series of mass shootings, ushered in a major expansion of gun rights.

It also required gun laws to fall in line with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In this case, Richardson and Judge G. Steven Agee found no evidence of such alignment.

“If you live in Maryland and you want a handgun, you must follow a long and winding path to get one,” Richardson wrote in the opinion. “The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analogue that justifies its restriction.”

The court also pointed to the timeline for obtaining a handgun qualification license, which could take up to 30 days.

Even though Maryland’s law doesn’t prohibit people from “owning handguns at some time in the future, it still prohibits them from owning handguns now,” Richardson wrote. “And the law’s waiting period could well be the critical time in which the applicant expects to face danger.”

But in her dissenting opinion, Judge Barbara Milano Keenan said her colleagues misapplied the Supreme Court precedent. She condemned their “hyperaggressive view of the Second Amendment.”

Instead of reversing the district court ruling that was issued before the 2022 Supreme Court decision, Keenan argued, the case should instead have been remanded to the lower court for reconsideration because “there is no legitimate reason to short-circuit the judicial process.”

Agee and Richardson were appointed by Republican presidents, while Keenan was appointed by a Democrat.

SUPREME COURT APPEARS LIKELY TO HAND BIDEN DOJ A WIN ON CHALLENGE TO GUN LAW

The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling — its first major gun decision in more than a decade — was similarly split, with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.

Mark Pennak, president of the advocacy group Maryland Shall Issue, which brought the lawsuit challenging the state licensing requirement, said he’s pleased with Tuesday’s ruling. He said it removes an unnecessary tangle of red tape.

“It’s a big win for common sense and the rule of law,” he said.

Pennak said the 2013 law made obtaining a handgun an overly expensive and arduous process. Before that law passed, he said, people had to complete a more limited training and pass a background check, among other requirements.