The U.S. Marshals Service revealed that it has used a cell phone tracking technology known as "stingray" to conduct surveillance on nearly 6,000 suspects, making the service the largest known user of the technology. The revelation, surfaced when the service responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by inadvertently sharing logs of its activity, was criticized by grantee the ACLU, which monitors government use of "stingrays," which the group brands "a very invasive surveillance tool." 

Democrats stepped up pressure on Republicans to consider President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the sudden death of Justice Scalia. The White House even went so far as to float the name of Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, as a possible nominee. Obama himself held forth extensively about his intention to carry out his constitutional duty, both in public remarks and in a guest blog post on Scotusblog.

Donald Trump claimed 46 percent of the Latino vote in the Nevada caucuses—a notable development, given his role in helping to bring the idea of mass deportation into the Republican campaign. His margin of victory among most major demographic groups sparked speculation, and anxiety, about the prospects of clinching the GOP nomination in the near term. New polling data on the attitudes of his supporters reveal a significant number back the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; nearly 20 percent said they disagreed with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves during the Civil War. Grantee America’s Voice released a statement decrying Trump’s “radical nativism.”

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) projected that the Latino vote this fall could rise 17 percent over turnout in the 2012 presidential campaign.

At a Capitol Hill hearing on the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the US border from Mexico, senators of both parties questioned whether authorities sending the children home were in fact sending them “back to their deaths,” as  Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin put it. The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southwestern border between October 2015 and January of this year doubled over the same period the previous year, though numbers remain below the high water mark established in the summer and early fall of 2014. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said the U.S. had deported four percent of unaccompanied minor migrants over the last several years.

Campaigning for Donald Trump, Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Mexico could be pressured into paying for the border wall Trump has called for if the federal government threatened to cut off foreign aid.

With a Friday deadline for Apple to respond to the FBI’s request for cooperation in hacking an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shootings, reports surfaced that law enforcement is seeking cooperation in nine other cases—and that the tech giant is taking steps to further secure their devices against the very kind of intervention the feds have requested.  Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a fresh interview calling the FBI’s request for a backdoor to penetrate iPhone security “equivalent to cancer.”

The New York Times published a piece examining the ethical quandaries a reporter faced in covering Central American migrants seeking refuge in the U.S.

Among other grantee activities:

--America’s Voice publicized a new report out from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, showing that the Texas-led challenge to President Obama’s immigration executive actions is costing the country millions of dollars in taxes paid by undocumented immigrants. The institute’s study found that full implementation of the president’s executive actions would yield an additional $805 million in tax revenue, while comprehensive immigration reform would boost it by $2.1 billion.   

--The Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress published an article airing many advocates’ complaints about a U.S. military paper equating the wearing of a hijab with “passive terrorism.”

--Human Rights First promoted a March 2 conference, bringing together military and national security leaders, government officials and legal experts to discuss the president’s plan for closing Guantanamo Bay.

--Kids in Need of Defense was among the advocates who convened a call following the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on unaccompanied minors, assessing the state of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America and

--Muslim Advocates put out a statement decrying Donald Trump’s statement over the weekend seemingly supporting shooting Muslim prisoners of war with bullets dipped in pig’s blood.

--The Brennan Center reviewed a new video game published as part of the Obama adminstration’s “countering violent extremism” programs that aims to help high school students spot extremism. The group found that it perpetuates myths about paths to radicalization. (The Brennan Center previously filed suit against the program as a whole, arguing it would fuel Islamophobia).