Wednesday, April 09, 2025
Tuesday, April 08, 2025
“Black Americans Are Not Surprised”: Christina Greer on Trump’s Attacks on Students, DEI & History | Democracy Now!
"There has been a systemic erasure of Black history.” Professor Christina Greer discusses the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech and efforts to whitewash American history. The erasure of the history of racism and resistance is not only intellectually dishonest, says Greer, but will also cause the U.S. economic and social harm. “We can’t move forward as a nation collectively … if we don’t understand our collective past,” she says."
“Detained Without Evidence”: Maryland Father Remains in El Salvador Prison After SCOTUS Ruling | Democracy Now!
"The Supreme Court has paused a lower court order that instructed the Trump administration to immediately bring back a U.S. legal resident who was “mistakenly” sent to El Salvador, giving the court more time to deliberate on the case. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was expelled from the U.S. on March 15 despite holding protected status, will continue to languish under dangerous conditions in a Salvadoran maximum-security prison. The Trump administration claims it’s powerless to bring him back to his family in Maryland. “They have dug in their heels at every step of the way,” says Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, about the government’s defense. “It’s ridiculous that this case is at the Supreme Court at all.”
Behind Abrego Garcia’s ICE arrest and removal is Trump’s invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority last deployed during World War II. In a separate ruling, the Supreme Court has approved of the Trump administration’s removals of Venezuelan immigrants, but said that those targeted must be given an opportunity to challenge their removal. So far, immigrants expelled to El Salvador have been largely denied their legal rights and detained without clear evidence. They are then incarcerated in the country’s “mega-prisons,” where rights abuses have flourished under El Salvador’s “state of exception.” “These conditions constitute, under international law, forced disappearances,” says Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a human rights organization in Central America."
Monday, April 07, 2025
Supreme Court Clears Way for Venezuelan Deportations to Resume, for Now
Supreme Court Clears Way for Venezuelan Deportations to Resume, for Now
(The United States is no longer a constitutional Republic)
“The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can continue deporting Venezuelan migrants using the Alien Enemies Act, but the migrants must receive advance notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal. The ruling, a procedural victory for the administration, did not address the constitutionality of the deportations. The decision was split, with the majority emphasizing the need for proper venue and the minority highlighting the potential harm to the migrants.
A majority of the justices concluded that the Venezuelan migrants had brought their cases in the wrong court but that they were entitled to an opportunity to challenge their removal.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday night that the Trump administration could continue to deport Venezuelan migrants using a wartime powers act for now, overturning a lower court that had put a temporary stop to the deportations.
The decision marks a victory for the Trump administration, although the ruling did not address the constitutionality of using the Alien Enemies Act to send the migrants to a prison in El Salvador. The justices instead issued a narrow procedural ruling, saying that the migrants’ lawyers had filed their lawsuit in the wrong court.
The justices said it should have been filed in Texas, where the Venezuelans are being held, rather than a court in Washington.
All nine justices agreed that the Venezuelan migrants detained in the United States must receive advance notice and the opportunity to challenge their deportation before they could be removed, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence.
The split among the court was over where — and how — that should happen.
“The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia,” according to the court’s order, which was brief and unsigned, as is typical in such emergency applications.
The justices ordered that the Venezuelan migrants must be told that they were subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act “within a reasonable time” for them to challenge their removal before they are deported. That finding could impose significant new restrictions on how the Trump administration might attempt to use the act in the future.
President Trump wrote on social media that he viewed the decision as a victory.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the majority’s legal conclusion was “suspect,” adding that the court had intervened to grant the administration “extraordinary relief” without mentioning “the grave harm” that the migrants would face if they were “erroneously removed to El Salvador.”
“The court should not reward the government’s efforts to erode the rule of law,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
She was joined in dissent by the court’s two other liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined in part.
In a separate dissent, Justice Jackson sharply criticized the court’s decision to act on the emergency docket, where cases are typically heard quickly and without oral argument and full briefing.
“At least when the court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong,” Justice Jackson wrote, citing Korematsu v. United States, a notorious 1944 decision by the court upholding the forcible internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“With more and more of our most significant rulings taking place in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s court leaves less and less of a trace,” Justice Jackson wrote. “But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences.”
Lawyers for the migrants challenging their deportations were “disappointed” that they would “need to start the court process over again” in a different court, but counted the ruling as a win, said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mr. Gelernt said that “the critical point is that the Supreme Court rejected the government’s position that it does not even have to give individuals meaningful advance notice so they can challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act.”
He added, “That is a huge victory.”
The case is perhaps the most high-profile of the nine emergency applications the Trump administration has filed with the Supreme Court so far, and it presents a direct collision between the judicial and executive branches.
The administration had asked the justices to weigh in on its effort to use the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law, to deport more than 100 Venezuelans it claims are members of Tren de Aragua, a violent street gang rooted in Venezuela. The administration argues that their removals are allowed under the act, which grants the president authority to detain or deport citizens of enemy nations. The president may invoke the law in times of “declared war” or when a foreign government invades the United States.
On March 14, Mr. Trump signed a proclamation that targeted members of Tren de Aragua, claiming that there was an “invasion” and a “predatory incursion” underway. In the proclamation, Mr. Trump claimed that the gang was “undertaking hostile actions” against the United States “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise” of the Venezuelan government.
Lawyers representing some of those targeted challenged the order in federal court in Washington.
That same day, planeloads of the deportees were sent to El Salvador, which had entered an agreement with the Trump administration to take the Venezuelans and detain them.
A federal judge, James E. Boasberg, directed the administration to stop the flights. He subsequently issued a written order temporarily pausing the administration’s plan while the court case proceeded.
The administration appealed Judge Boasberg’s temporary restraining order, and a divided panel of three appellate court judges in Washington sided with the migrants, keeping the pause in place. One judge wrote that the government’s deportation plan had denied the Venezuelans “even a gossamer thread of due process.”
At that point, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, arguing in its application that the case presented “fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national-security-related operations in this country.”
Lawyers for the migrants responded sharply, arguing that the temporary pause by Judge Boasberg was “the only thing” standing in the way of the government sending migrants “to a prison in El Salvador, perhaps never to be seen again, without any kind of procedural protection, much less judicial review.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, the groups representing the Venezuelan migrants, said the president had bent the law in an “effort to shoehorn a criminal gang” into the wartime law in a manner that was “completely at odds with the limited delegation of wartime authority Congress chose to give him through the statute.”
Lawyers for the migrants said the deportees sent to El Salvador “have been confined, incommunicado, in one of most brutal prisons in the world, where torture and other human rights abuses are rampant.”
The Trump administration replied on Wednesday in a brief that contended that the government was not denying that the Venezuelan migrants should receive “judicial review.”
“They obviously do,” the acting solicitor general, Sarah M. Harris, wrote.
Rather, the government argued, that “the pressing issues right now are ‘procedural issues’ about where and how detainees should challenge their designations as enemy aliens.” Ms. Harris argued that the migrants should have filed their legal challenge in Texas, where they had been detained before the deportation flights, rather than in Washington.
She asked the justices to lift the temporary block on Mr. Trump’s order, calling the pause “an intolerably long time for a court to block the executive’s conduct of foreign-policy and national-security operations.”
Ms. Harris claimed that the migrants’ lawyers had offered a “sensationalized” narrative.
She added that the government denied that the migrants might face torture in El Salvador, writing that the government’s position is “to abhor torture, not to invite brutalization.”
Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
A correction was made on
April 7, 2025
:An earlier version of this article misstated the number of emergency applications filed to the Supreme Court so far by the Trump administration. The administration has filed nine such applications, not eight.
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.“
BREAKING: Supreme Court makes SHOCKING move, captures global attention
Chief Justice Robert’s shows once again he is noting but a bigoted criminal not qualified to be on the Supreme Court.
Court overturns Trump’s firings of two independent agency board members
Court overturns Trump’s firings of two independent agency board members
An appeals court reinstated Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox to their positions at the Merit Systems Protection Board and National Labor Relations Board, respectively. The ruling, along party lines, overturned previous decisions and is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The case centers on a 1935 Supreme Court precedent protecting independent agency heads from presidential removal.
Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox ordered to be reinstated again in legal saga likely to go to US supreme court
An appeals court has paved the way for a likely showdown in the US supreme court over presidential power after reinstating two federal agency heads fired from their posts in Donald Trump’s all-out assault on the government bureaucracy.
The Washington DC court of appeals ordered that Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox be restored to the positions with the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) respectively. The ruling overturned a previous verdict by a three-judge panel which had ruled that their dismissals – which had been earlier overturned under legal challenge – were indeed legal.
It is the latest twist in the legal status of the two officials, but unlikely to be the last.
Monday’s ruling by the full court was along party lines, with seven judges appointed by Democratic presidents voting to reinstate the women against four dissenters, who were all appointed to the bench by Republican administrations.
The Trump administration is not expected to accept the latest ruling, but is instead likely to ask the supreme court to rule on the constitutional basis of a 90-year-old legal precedent on which it is based.
Harris and Wilcox have been repeatedly fired and reinstated since Trump’s inauguration following contradictory rulings.
Both have alleged that their unceremonious firings breach an existing 1978 law which says that agency members can only be dismissed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office”. Neither was given a reason why they were being terminated.
Wilcox became the first Black woman on the NLRB after being confirmed by the Senate following her nomination by Joe Biden in 2021. She was reconfirmed after being nominated to a second term in 2023.
Harris is head of a previously obscure agency whose power to review and reverse federal employee firings has now assumed central relevance in light of the mass dismissals of federal workers and government watchdogs carried out since Trump took office.
She was initially reinstated on 4 March following the ruling of a district court judge, Rudolph Contreras, who wrote that Trump’s firing of her a month earlier was unlawful because he cited no cause.
Although subsequent rulings later confirmed the initial firings, the appeals court justified its judgment with reference to a 1935 supreme court ruling, which protects the heads of independent agencies from being removed by a president.
“The supreme court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant supreme court precedent unless and until that court itself changes it or overturns it,” the appeals court’s ruling stated.
Some Trump administration officials have said the 90-year-old ruling is unconstitutional and have said the supreme court should overturn it. Some of the court’s conservative-leaning justices have indicated a readiness to do so.
A minority dissenting opinion on Tuesday’s ruling, written by Karen Henderson – appointed under George HW Bush – said the supreme court should be asked to rule. “Only the supreme court can decide the dispute and, in my opinion, the sooner, the better,” she wrote.“4
Sunday, April 06, 2025
Trump Live Updates: Judge Says ‘Grievous’ Deportation Error Must Be Reversed - The New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Judge Says ‘Grievous’ Deportation Error Must Be Reversed
"Where Things Stand
Mistaken deportation: A federal judge called the deportation of a Maryland man to a notorious Salvadoran prison a “grievous error,” adding that the Trump administration’s conduct “shocks the conscience.” The judge has ordered the government to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, but the administration has said it can do little to bring him back and asked an appeals court to halt the order. Read more ›
Measles death: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral of an 8-year-old who last week became the second confirmed death from the disease in a decade. Mr. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has emphasized untested treatments like cod liver oil, wrote on social media that vaccination was “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.” Read more ›
Defending tariffs: Top administration officials sought to defend President Trump’s expansive tariffs during television appearances, dismissing the turmoil in financial markets and downplaying the chances they will lead to higher prices. The administration has offered mixed signals about using the tariffs as negotiating tools, while nations including Vietnam seek to strike deals with the United States."
How RFK Jr. is weakening America’s childhood vaccine system – NBC Chicago
Last week, Jackie Griffith showed up at her office at the Collin County Health Care Clinic in north Texas ready to start her day — answering emails from local doctors before heading to a nearby high school to go over the latest vaccine record requirements.
Instead, the 60-year-old registered nurse was called into her director’s office and told to pack up her belongings. The federal government had yanked funding, she learned, and her position — supporting vaccination efforts for uninsured children through a network of more than 60 providers — was gone.
Across the country in New Hampshire, Kayla Hogan, 27, was hearing the same. She worked for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, onboarding clinics and hospitals into a data system that would help them administer free childhood vaccines. Now that project was in jeopardy, threatening the process of getting children vaccinated.
As deportations ramp up, immigrants increasingly fear Ice check-ins: ‘All bets are off’ | Trump administration | The Guardian
As deportations ramp up, immigrants increasingly fear Ice check-ins: ‘All bets are off’
"Data suggests as many as 1,400 people were arrested during or right after Ice check-ins in first four weeks of Trump’s administration
Jorge, a 22-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, reported in February to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Portland, Oregon, for what he figured would be a routine check-in. Instead, he was arrested and transferred to a detention center in another state.
Alberto, a 42-year-old from Nicaragua who had been granted humanitarian parole, checked in with Ice using an electronic monitoring program that same month. Three days later, he was arrested.
Sergei and Marina, a young couple from Russia with a pending asylum case, went into an immigration office in San Francisco in March, thinking they needed to update some paperwork. Agents arrested Sergei and told Marina to come back in a few weeks.
For years, immigrants of all sorts with cases in process, pending appeals or parole, had been required to regularly check in with Ice officers. And so long as they had not violated any regulations or committed any crimes, they were usually sent on their way with little issue. Now, as the Trump administration pushes for the mass arrest and deportation of immigrants, these once routine check-ins have become increasingly fraught.
Ice does not appear to keep count of how many people it has arrested at check-ins. But the Guardian estimates, based on arrest data from the first four weeks of the Trump administration, that about 1,400 arrests, or about 8% of the nearly 16,500 arrests in the administration’s first month – may have occurred during or right after people checked in with the agency.
The Guardian reviewed cases in the arrest data, which was released by the Deportation Data Project from UC Berkeley Law School, where people who had previously been released on supervision were now arrested, as well as cases of people with pending immigration proceedings who were arrested in their communities. According to immigration lawyers, these types of arrests are most likely to match arrests that are occurring during or shortly after check-ins – though the actual number of cases may be higher.
“Essentially, these people are low-hanging fruit for Ice,” said Laura Urias, a program director and attorney at the legal non-profit ImmDef. “It’s just very easy to arrest them.”
Under the Biden administration, immigration officials had been instructed to prioritize detaining and expelling people who posed threats to public safety, and had criminal records. There were arrests during Ice check-ins during the Biden administration, too. A Guardian analysis found there were 821 arrests per month, on average, in 2024 that appeared to have occurred during or right after check-ins. But officials often used their discretion to allow immigrants who weren’t considered a priority for deportation to remain in their communities, on orders of recognizance or supervision.
One of Donald Trump’s first actions after he was sworn in for his second term was to broaden Ice’s mandate – now all immigrants without legal status are prioritized for arrest, including those who have been checking in and cooperating with authorities.
“Under this new administration, all bets are off,” said Stefania Ramos, an immigration lawyer based in Seattle. “So anyone with an Ice check-in appointment is frantic, looking for a lawyer, trying to figure out what they can do to protect themselves.”
Attorneys and advocates cannot advise clients to skip check-ins because doing so would mean violating immigration regulations. And because these immigrants have been complying with Ice requirements, the agency knows their current home and work addresses. Many under Ice supervision had been ordered to wear ankle monitors or use facial recognition apps to check in – and allow the agency access to their real-time whereabouts.
But lawyers are advising clients to prepare for the possibility that they could be detained at check-ins, and to bring someone, either a family member or an attorney, along with them.
Jorge, the 22-year-old from Venezuela, had been checking in with Ice every three months while awaiting a court date to assess his asylum case. “Truly, I was never afraid I’d be arrested, because I did everything right,” he said on the phone, from the detention center in Tacoma where he is now being held.
When an immigration official in Portland summoned him to sign some paperwork on 20 February, he had no reason to think he’d be relocated to a detention center one state over. “The truth is, this is so crazy,” he said. “I have a clean record. That’s why I voluntarily went to Ice.”
In detention, he’s seen glimpses of the news that the president has declared war on Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, that Venezuelan men with no criminal convictions were being sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador. “I’m afraid,” he said. He isn’t from the state in Venezuela where Tren de Aragua operates, and he has no tattoos – which the government has spuriously cited as evidence that men are members of a gang. “But I don’t know what to think. It feels like I am being unjustly imprisoned simply for being Venezuelan.”
Jorge had himself fled violence back home. He had first escaped to Colombia in 2022, but he had found it impossible to make money and survive there. That year, he continued north, through the Darién jungle, to Panama, but eventually decided to return home to Venezuela when he realized the US was enforcing its “remain in Mexico” policy, sending migrants arriving at the southern border back to Mexico. “I was back for only three months, but I was living a nightmare. I had to leave,” he said. He witnessed multiple homicides and was harassed by local law enforcement. “I was afraid for my life.”
He crossed through the Darién Gap again in 2023, and registered an asylum claim and was given a court date in 2025. In the two years since, he enrolled in community college and completed the accredited irrigation program in partnership with Portland Community College, worked as an advocate with the Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project and trained in emergency preparedness. He danced bachata and played on pick-up sports teams in town. “I left my family in Venezuela, but I found my community in Portland,” he said.
“Now I feel despair. My future is literally hanging in the balance,” he said. On 20 March, a judge denied his appeal for bond – which means he will likely have to remain in detention until September, unless his lawyers are able to successfully appeal. Meanwhile, his friends have been raising money to cover legal expenses and commissary funds in detention.
“I’m trying to keep courage,” he said. “But I don’t know why I’m here.”
More than a dozen immigration lawyers, advocates and former immigration officials that the Guardian interviewed for this story said they have been hearing of similar cases across the country.
ImmDef, which maintains a rapid response hotline for the families of people who have been detained, has received several calls from people who said their loved ones were arrested at check-ins. But the organization has also seen a number of cases where people went to their check-ins, and encountered no problems.
“It hasn’t been consistent,” said Urias. “We haven’t seen much of a pattern, per se.”
Ice did not respond to questions about whether its agents are increasingly arresting people at check-ins, or whether the frequency of these check-ins had changed, though the agency acknowledged it received the Guardian’s query.
Urias was especially worried for one of her clients, a woman who survived domestic violence. She has a removal order but a pending application for a U-visa, which is offered to the victims of certain crimes.
“She had been checking in with Ice since 2016, we actually survived the first Trump administration,” said Urias. Normally, Urias doesn’t accompany her to the check-ins but did so earlier this month. But then, the check-in happened without incident – and she was told to come back in a year. “It was a huge relief,” said Urias. “But also it feels like there’s no rhyme or reason why some people are ok, and others are picked up.”
Lawyers and advocates said people such as Urias’s client – who have been given prior “orders of removal” by Ice, but were allowed to remain in the US because they had pending cases or appeals, because they had children or family in the US under their care, or because home countries weren’t accepting deportation flights – were among the most vulnerable to deportation at the moment.
Ice always had the power to execute removal orders at any time – and now the agency seems particularly poised to wield that power.
That’s what worries Inna Scott, an immigration attorney in Seattle, whose client had crossed into the US from Mexico as a teenager, and was issued a deportation order in 1997. But he has continued to live in the US since then. In 2021, he was able to get a permit to work legally in the US after complying with Ice’s orders to regularly check in.
When he reported, as usual, in March this year, immigration officials told Scott that they would likely seek to enforce her client’s removal order from the 90s, and instructed them to return in a month. “My client has no criminal history and has been a well-behaved resident of the country for decades,” she said. “But now he’s all of a sudden subject to detainment.” Ice could reinstate his old deportation order without giving him any opportunity to make his case in front of an immigration judge.
Scott said she wasn’t particularly shocked because Ice officials made similar arrests during the first Trump administration – which had also issued a broad mandate to deport anyone without legal status. “But it is unfortunate. These are people without any kind of criminal history. These are people who are not national security risks. They’re not fugitives, they are living their lives working lawfully, with their work permits,” she said. “And they’re still being uprooted from their lives and taken to a country they haven’t been to in decades.”
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