Cristian Farias

New York

Writer and Editor at Freelance

Legal Affairs Contributor at Vanity Fair

Legal journalist and beachgoer. I’ve written about law, justice, and the politics shaping them in lots of places. Edit: @_inquest_. Hablo y pienso en español.

Articles

Julián Elfenbein y el fin de su romance con Tonka: “Parived entraba al camarín de ella y le decía ‘éste no porque tiene mala vibra’...”

1 week ago | lacuarta.com | Cristian Farias

TwitterFacebookWhatsappLinkedInEmailComentarios“Me parece que es de mal gusto hablar de ex...”, comenzó a responder Julián Elfenbein cuando Diana Bolocco le preguntó en Podemos Hablar si es que había “pololeado” con Tonka Tomicic. Pero el animador de 52 años no alcanzó a terminar la frase, porque cuando se dio cuenta que había dicho “ex” al referirse a Tonka, tanto Diana como el panelista Jaime Figueroa como él mismo sufrieron un ataque de risa.
The Supreme Court that Ended the Fundamental Right to an Abortion Won’t Protect Trans Youth from Discrimination

1 week ago | vanityfair.com | Cristian Farias

In a landmark ruling that will surely send ripples through a nation that is in the midst of a purge of transgender people from public life, the Supreme Court of the United States decreed, by a vote of six to three, that kids who suffer from gender dysphoria aren’t entitled to the protections of the equality guarantees of the Constitution.
The ICE War on Workers

1 week ago | nymag.com | Cristian Farias

Speaking to reporters outside the federal building where he was manhandled and handcuffed for trying to ask questions of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Senator Alex Padilla ably distilled why the people of Los Angeles have taken to the streets.
How John Roberts Created the Anti-constitutional Monster Devouring Washington

1 week ago | vanityfair.com | Cristian Farias

Forgotten in the arc of John Roberts’s nearly two decades as chief justice of the United States is his role, behind the scenes, to herald the result in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. No, he didn’t write the ruling that ushered in our current era of corporations and billionaires buying the presidency of the United States and other offices. But he can be credited with moving the chess pieces that made that sweeping landmark, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, possible.
Donald Trump Is Torching the First Amendment. Judges Are Putting Him in His Place

1 month ago | vanityfair.com | Cristian Farias

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts student whom ICE disappeared from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, in March, spent 45 days as a political prisoner of the United States of America. The charges against her: coauthoring an opinion piece in her student newspaper.
Judge Dugan's Arrest Has Nothing to Do With Public Safety

2 months ago | nymag.com | Cristian Farias

When Donald Trump was criminally indicted in Manhattan in 2023, he was given a courtesy that's not the norm for the many New Yorkers accused of crimes on any given day: He was given a heads-up about the charges against him and told to appear in court for his arraignment, without the need to arrest him and bring him before the judge. As a former president, the first in history to be indicted, he was neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety, the thinking went.
Why the Supreme Court Put Its Foot Down on One Lawless Trump Deportation

2 months ago | vanityfair.com | Cristian Farias

Nearly one month has gone by since Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Maryland husband and father whom an immigration judge had expressly allowed to remain in the United States years ago, was taken from his family, put on a plane, and sent to a so-called “terrorism confinement center” in El Salvador. The Trump administration did this in our names by mistake and without legal authority, acknowledging in a court of law that an “administrative error” had caused this unlawful disappearance.
The Conservative Legal Advocates Working to Kill Trump’s Tariffs

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Cristian Farias

The New Civil Liberties Alliance, or N.C.L.A., was founded during the early days of the first Trump Administration by a group of conservative-leaning legal advocates, to “tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies.” Many of their cases have targeted the same kind of administrative power that President Trump himself is determined to stamp out—including his all-out assault on independent watchdogs and agencies.
The Most Important Judge in America

2 months ago | nymag.com | Cristian Farias

The Saturday that Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., was assigned the case challenging Donald Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, he was not dressed for the occasion. The case had been filed alongside an urgent motion to prevent the deportation of five people their lawyers feared would soon be disappeared to El Salvador.
How John Roberts Has Empowered a Lawless Presidency

Mar 29, 2025 | rsn.org | Cristian Farias

The Chief Justice’s rebuke of Donald Trump over his calls to impeach judges obscures Roberts’s own role in fostering the destruction in Washington.