The clash over President Donald Trump‘s bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants deepened Sunday as he again bashed the judiciary, while a top Democrat warned the country was “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.
The latest events followed a dramatic intervention by the Supreme Court in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday to temporarily block Trump‘s use of an obscure law to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process.
Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”
“Literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief… without hearing from the opposing party,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is vowing to travel to El Salvador to negotiate the release of a wrongly deported man after the Trump administration ignored a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate his return to the U.S.
In a letter sent to the El Salvadorian Ambassador on April 13 before Trump’s tête-à-tête with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Van Hollen requested a meeting with Bukele during his U.S. visit to discuss “the illegal detention of [his] constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” after the Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to unanimously uphold U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s ruling that he was wrongly deported and that the U.S. government was responsible for bringing him home.
(It’s unclear if Van Hollen ever got to meet with Bukele.)
Two members of House Democratic leadership are trying to send an official congressional delegation to the El Salvadorian prison where the Trump administration is sending deportees, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Dozens of House Democrats have privately expressed interest in participating in such a trip to protest the Trump administration’s deportation policies, sources tell Axios.
But while lawmakers could travel to the Central American country informally, a Republican committee chair’s approval is needed to send an official congressional delegation, or CODEL.
A CODEL would provide the members with crucial oversight powers and security resources.
The wife of Kilmar Garcia, a man who was deported from Maryland to his native El Salvador in March 14, has spoken out publicly to ask that he be returned to the US and their family. A GoFundMe crowdsourcing campaign has raised over $165,000. What Jenniefer Vasquez did not mention, however, is that she petitioned for a domestic violence protective order against him in 2021.
Revealing the information about the protective order in a post, Andy Ngo said “The wife of deported suspected gang terrorist Kilmar Abrego Garcia either lied to the court when she petitioned for a domestic violence protective order against him or she is lying now on the GoFundMe claiming he is an excellent husband as over $162K has poured in.” The case detail shows that it was brought by Vasquez against Garcia in May 2021 for domestic violence. The case has since been closed. Garcia has been referred to by many media outlets as a “Maryland man” or “Maryland dad.”
Per The Chesepeake Today, “Jennifer Vasquez filed for a protective order due to domestic violence from her husband on May 13, 2021, and a final order was issued on June 17, 2021, by Prince George’s County District Court Judge LaKeecia Allen. Judge Allen was elevated to the Circuit Court on Aug. 1, 2024, by Maryland Governor Wes Moore. Judge Allen previously served as a prosecutor in the Prince George’s State’s Attorney’s Office.”
In a press conference, Vasquez said “I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive.” She spoke directly to Garcia, saying “stay strong. God has not forgotten about you.” She said she was “pleading with the Trump administration and the Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.” Their children, she said, miss their father. “I hope that the strength of faith and the resilience within us will keep us standing after all the punches we continue to receive. Our ability to fight back against these governments are testimonies to the fight and strength that God has given us.”
Democrat lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are reportedly planning trips to El Salvador to seek the release of an alleged MS-13 gang member and bring him back to the United States where he lived illegally from 2012 until March 2025.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was among the hundreds of illegal immigrants—a large percentage of them MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang members—deported to El Salvador last month under the Alien Enemies Act.
On Monday, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) reportedly sent a letter to El Salvador’s ambassador to the United States asking for a meeting with the President Nayib Bukele while he was in Washington D.C.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Armando Bukele told reporters during a meeting with President Donald Trump later in the day that he “of course” would not “smuggle” Kilmar Abrego Garcia back into the United States.
United States District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by former President Barack Obama, has past ties to Democrats and ruled against immigration enforcement in the first Trump administration.
This week, Talwani blocked President Donald Trump from deporting migrants who were released into the United States interior via former President Joe Biden’s parole pipeline.
The decision by Talwani to prevent Trump from ending Biden’s parole pipeline, thus preventing the administration from deporting more than 530,000 migrants with no legal status in the United States, is among many from Democrat-appointed federal judges who have halted the White House from implementing its agenda.
Talwani was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 2013 by then-President Obama. In her Senate questionnaire, Talwani revealed that she had volunteered for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Talwani also volunteered for Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), and Martha Coakley’s (D) failed Senate campaign.
President Donald Trump and his administration have long been the targets of lawfare motivated by leftists, stretching back to his first term. Although Democrats have played semantic games to categorize these attacks as anything other than politically motivated, one lawmaker finally said the quiet part out loud.
Democratic Rep. Laura Friedman of California told town hall attendees Monday that she and her colleagues regularly gather in closed-door meetings dedicated to plotting legal attacks against Trump and his administration.
While this practice has become commonplace within the Democratic Party, congressional Republicans are doing what they can to put a stop to it.
“Every single week we have a litigation working group where a large group of us, and I’m talking there’s maybe 75 members of the House, sit down every single week with the [attorneys general] to talk about legal strategy,” Friedman said. “This is all going on every single week behind the scenes. It is nonstop.”
Friedman quickly diluted the severity of her admission by mentioning additional and more common avenues politicians use to attack each other.
“It is nonstop introduction of bills and legislation, nonstop being on social media as much as we can without being throttled, without the, you know, crazy analytics, and doing all these things,” Friedman said.
A Massachusetts federal judge stopped the Trump administration late Monday from yanking legal status from more than 530,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals who were brought into the US under a controversial Biden administration parole program. Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled that the migrants are entitled to a case-by-case review and declined to put her decision on hold while the Trump administration appeals it.
Biden’s parole program was granted by executive order, so the program can be terminated by executive order. If the Democrats wanted it to be permanent, they needed to go through Congress and get it signed into law.
Furthermore, the Supreme court just ruled that a district judge cannot issue a nationwide injunction.
President Donald Trump has issued an avalanche of executive actions since returning to the White House, but not all of them have held up to initial judicial scrutiny.
While Trump has been successful with several of his actions, others have been struck down by federal courts. The Trump administration still has avenues to appeal all of the negative rulings, but these are the orders currently paused by the courts.
A federal judge in Virginia has granted the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) request to dismiss a gun charge against a Salvadoran national whom Trump administration officials have called a senior leader of the notorious MS-13 transnational gang—clearing the way for his possible swift deportation.
In a minute order issued on April 15, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick approved the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the criminal complaint against 24-year-old Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos but delayed entry of the order until 10 a.m. on April 18 to give his defense attorney time to explore potential legal avenues to prevent his transfer into immigration custody.
The dismissal comes just weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference that Santos is “one of the top three” MS-13 leaders in the United States and that he would not be “living in our country much longer.” President Donald Trump also weighed in, calling the arrest a major victory in his administration’s campaign to crack down on foreign gangs that pose a threat to American communities.
Federal prosecutors filed only a single charge against Santos—possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant—after an FBI SWAT team raided his family home in Woodbridge, Virginia, on March 27. According to the affidavit, investigators found multiple firearms and “indicia of MS-13 association” in his bedroom, but no gang-related charges were ever filed.
Democrat minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is threatening the Trump administration to bring back illegal alien gangbangers into the country or face consequences.
Pelosi’s angels.
Democrats have a long history of defending violent, illegal alien gangbangers.
Former Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi defended MS-13 in 2018 saying they were “God’s children…” and, “There’s a spark of divinity in every person.”
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from revoking legal status and work permits for over 530,000 illegal aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled Monday that the Trump administration cannot terminate the legal status of the migrants “without case-by-case review.”
The Biden administration program allowed migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to be flown directly into the interior of the U.S. and granted work authorization. The program was intended to provide “safe and orderly pathways to the United States” for nationals from the four nations under the category of humanitarian parole.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to “Terminate all categorical parole programs,” including the “Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.”
Khalil’s lawyers have until April 23 to request ‘relief’ and halt deportation
President Donald Trump’s administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the man who helped lead disruptive pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University over the last year, a U.S. immigration judge ruled Friday.
“The department has met its burden to establish removability by clear and convincing evidence,” Judge Jamee Comans said, according to The New York Times.
Khalil’s case “now moves on to what is known as the ‘relief stage,’ in which his lawyers will be able to argue for his right to stay in the country. If they lose, they can appeal, first to an immigration board and then to a federal court,” the outlet reported.
The judge gave Khalil’s legal team until April 23 to file a request for relief to prevent his deportation, Axios reported.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to America.
“The question is preposterous,” said Bukele. “How can I smuggle a terrorist with the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Abrego Garcia belonged to the El Salvadoran MS-13 gang and entered America illegally. He lost his attempts to stay in America through the immigration and asylum system but received removal protection in 2019.
Abrego Garcia had to be removed…except to El Salvador because he feared for his life.
“We’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” continued Bukele. “We just turned the murder capital of the world to the safest country of the western hemisphere and he wants to go back into the releasing criminal so we can go back to being the murdered capital of the world. That’s not going to happen.”
White House Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller on Monday called the Justice Department attorney who was handling the Abrego Garcia deportation case a Democrat “saboteur” and accused him of falsely claiming Garcia was mistakenly removed.
On April 4, DOJ attorney, Erez Reuveni, told U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis that Garcia “should not have been removed,” and that he didn’t know why the alleged MS-13 member was even arrested. “I am also frustrated that I also have no answers for you on a lot of these questions,” he said.
After that court appearance, Reuveni was placed on leave. “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on April 5. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
A federal judge on Friday ordered President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to unfreeze federal funding to Maine, as the administration continues to battle the Democrat-run state over transgender athletes.
District Court Judge John Woodcock issued a temporary restraining order in the case brought by Maine against the USDA, although he noted his order does not weigh in on the larger dispute surrounding Maine allowing trans-identifying males on female sports teams and in female spaces.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on April 2 that the agency had begun freezing federal funds to Maine because of Democrat Gov. Janet Mills’ refusal to bar transgender-identifying boys from competing in girls’ sports. The USDA said it paused distribution of funds after sending multiple requests to Mills urging her to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal funding.
“You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated,” Rollins said in the letter. “Your defiance of federal law has cost your state, which is bound by Title IX in educational programming. Today, I am freezing Maine’s federal funds for certain administrative and technological functions in schools.”
The Trump DOJ opposed requests in alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s motion for additional relief.
On Friday, US District Judge of the US District Court for the District of Maryland, Paula Xinis set a new hearing in the case of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia after the Supreme Court ruled the US must facilitate his return from El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, photo via Murray Osorio PLLC immigration law firm.
The US Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the US to facilitate the return of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
A federal judge has upheld a Trump Administration policy that allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out enforcement operations at churches and other places of worship, representing another major court victory for the administration as it seeks to accelerate its mass deportation operations.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was appointed by Trump during his first term in the White House, denied a request from more than two dozen Jewish and Christian organizations to block the policy. In a lawsuit brought forward by the groups, they argued that the policy infringes on religious freedom and was causing a drop in attendance at religious services, especially among illegal aliens who fear potential deportation.
“That evidence suggests that congregants are staying home to avoid encountering ICE in their own neighborhoods, not because churches or synagogues are locations of elevated risk,” Friedrich wrote in her ruling.
The Washington-based judge found that the plaintiffs lack standing after finding little evidence that the administration was singling out places of worship. She also rejected the claim that the policy could be blamed for drops in attendance, noting that only a handful of immigration enforcement operations have taken place in and around churches or other places of worship.
President Donald Trump continues fighting multiple legal battles to fulfill his promises to the American people.
These battles are mostly against activist federal judges who are working overtime to stop the president from exercising his executive authority.
According to Breitbart, that was evidenced once again this week as an Obama-appointed federal judge “blocked the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants with temporary protected status (TPS) after it was revoked.”
The ruling is the latest in efforts to wage “lawfare” against Trump and his administration on the deportation front and his broader immigration policies.
It came in the wake of the Trump administration’s removal of TPS from nearly 500,000 immigrants.
