US immigration officials have started deporting about 12 South Asian migrants to South Sudan, a Tuesday court filing and reports said. Lawyers argue the move violates a prior order, citing a May 7 emergency motion after reports of planned deportations to Libya and Saudi Arabia.
US District Court Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee, said to hell with the Supreme Court and still ordered the Trump DOJ to turn over documents related to its decision to revoke protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.
Judge Chen said the Supreme Court’s ruling today is not a factor and insisted on a deadline tonight for the Trump DOJ to turn over the documents.
UPDATE: Judge Chen in SF insists on deadline tonight for Trump administration to turn over documents related to decision to curtail TPS for Venezuelans. #SCOTUS ruling today not a factor, judge says. Earlier: https://t.co/vD2PW3lIfXpic.twitter.com/TbjCz8mUqj
New York Attorney General Letitia James was heckled at a town hall event on Thursday evening by a Trump supporter who questioned whether James would apologize to President Donald Trump for “wasting millions of dollars” on a “witch trial.”
“My question is for Tish James. Will you apologize to President Trump for wasting millions of dollars, and the state of New York, for a witch trial?” asked the man, adding, “And how does it feel to know that you will be in prison for mortgage fraud?”
His question was met with boos from the crowd and James responded, “Thank you for coming,” as the man was escorted out of the event.
She added, “We want to thank him for coming, we respect all opinions. Everybody knows those allegations are baseless. They’re discredited.”
An appellate court handed the Trump administration a small victory Thursday evening by temporarily blocking a lower court’s order that required the government to take steps to return a Venezuelan national it deported to El Salvador.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit gave no explanation for its decision but granted the administration the stay until Thursday. Justice Department attorneys argued to the appellate court that the government legally deported Daniel Lozano Camargo to a terrorist prison in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump invoked the powerful wartime law in March as a means to bypass routine immigration proceedings and quickly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua.
A federal judge in Vermont on Friday ordered the Trump administration to release Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk on bail after she was accused of aiding the terrorist group Hamas.
Oturk’s arrest occurred in late March when immigration agents approached her on the street while she was walking with friends outside her home in Somerville, MA. The agents placed her in handcuffs and drove her to Vermont. Afterward, she was transported to a Louisiana prison.
In seeking her release, her lawyers have accused the government of detaining her in unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech. The main evidence against her appears to be an essay critical of Israel that she helped to write in a Tufts student newspaper last year.
Video footage of Ms. Ozturk’s detention went viral, leading to public outrage of her treatment by critics who say the government is abusing the immigration system to deport international students.
Ms. Ozturk has spent six weeks in detention in Louisiana and has endured unsanitary conditions that have triggered increasingly severe asthma attacks, her lawyers said in court documents.
The arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk (on a student visa) and Mahmoud Khalil (a green card holder) by masked “officer” using Gestapo-like tactics should concern all Americans. While not citizens, they have rights under the Constitution.
President Donald Trump confirmed late Thursday he was appointing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after pulling his controversial nomination of Ed Martin to hold that role permanently.
“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York, Trump said on Truth Social.
“She is in a class by herself. Congratulations Jeanine!”
NBC News reported earlier Trump was strongly considering Pirro for the position, which oversees criminal prosecutions and civil cases in Washington, D.C., a federal district.
Pirro is the former district attorney for Westchester County, New York.
Just 24 hours after pulling his pick for surgeon general, the president has now announced he will drop Ed Martin’s nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.—the latest collapse in an administration stacked with loyalists and controversy magnets.
“We have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days that will be great,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
Martin’s nomination had been on life support for days. On Tuesday, New Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis—a key GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—came out against Martin, citing the nominee’s past defense of Jan. 6 insurrectionists. With Tillis out on Martin, that made a deadlocked 11-11 committee vote likely, with several other Republican senators still uncommitted.
US appeals court blocks Trump’s attempt to revoke legal status of parolees living in US – Jurist.org Source Link Excerpt:
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the US. The ruling follows a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of individual beneficiaries, sponsors of humanitarian parole processes, and affected parolees.
The lawsuit comes after the Trump administration in March revoked the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of people residing in the US. The “Keeping Families Together” program, introduced by former president Joe Biden, allowed “certain alien ‘applicants for admission’ to be present in the United States on a temporary, case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” If granted parole, these individuals could apply for adjustment of status “to that of a lawful permanent resident” without having to leave the US.
The initial complaint mentions various groups of individuals—including “Ukrainians seeking safety from the Russian invasion of their country; Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans all fleeing political instability, persecution, and environmental disasters; and Afghans who assisted the United States government during its war in Afghanistan”—hoping to find safety and stability in the US.
A newly declassified U.S. intelligence memo contradicts President Trump’s claims about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), undermining his justification for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport gang members.
A federal appeals court on May 5 rejected the Department of Homeland Security’s bid to stay a lower court ruling that blocked the termination of temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans residing in the United States.
In a ruling, a three-judge panel on the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had not made “a strong showing” that her categorical termination of the immigrants’ temporary parole would likely be sustained on appeal.
The panel also stated that Noem has not demonstrated that the balance of harms and the public interest “weigh so heavily” to warrant a stay of the lower court order.
The decision follows U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s earlier ruling that blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from ending a Biden-era two-year parole program for immigrants from the four countries.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said he told the White House he would not support Ed Martin’s nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Tillis is a key vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Martin’s nomination to a full Senate vote.
“Most of my concerns related to January 6th,” Tillis said.
“If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where Jan. 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support him. But not in this district,” Tillis continued.
“At this point, I’ve indicated to the White House I wouldn’t support his nomination,” he added.
Attorneys general in 19 states and Washington, D.C., are challenging cuts to the U.S. Health and Human Services agency, saying the Trump administration’s massive restructuring has destroyed life-saving programs and left states to pick up the bill for mounting health crises.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said. The attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia signed onto the complaint.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. restructured the agency in March, eliminating more than 10,000 employees and collapsing 28 agencies under the sprawling HHS umbrella into 15, the attorneys general said. An additional 10,000 employees had already been let go by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the lawsuit, and combined the cuts stripped 25% of the HHS workforce.
President Donald Trump shared his thoughts on a plot from a group of Republican senators to derail the nomination of Ed Martin, the president’s nominee for the critical position of D.C. U.S. Attorney, in a forceful Truth Social post on Monday night.
Martin was appointed to his current position on January 20, the day Trump was sworn in for his second term. As District Attorney for the District of Columbia, Martin serves a unique role of prosecuting both federal and local crimes in the D.C. area.
His predecessor, Matthew Graves, used the position to arrest hundreds of Trump supporters on non-violent trespassing charges relating to the January 6 Capitol protests, many of whom were sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms on non-violent misdemeanor charges.
Martin’s interim appointment can last for a maximum of 120 days, and is set to end on May 20. If Martin is not confirmed by that date, the authority to appointing a replacement will fall to the fervently anti-Trump U.S. District Court.
President Donald Trump will nominate federal judges “rapidly,” he told The Daily Signal on Sunday night.
“We’re putting them in rapidly and trying to get very good ones, but we need judges that are not going to be demanding trials for every single illegal immigrant,” Trump said on Air Force One. “We have millions of people that have come here illegally, and we can’t have a trial for every single person, that would be millions of trials.”
Trump is off to a slower start in nominating judges than his first term, having only nominated one federal judge, Whitney Hermandorfer, who will serve on the 6th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio.
About 100 days into Trump’s first term, the Senate had already confirmed a new Supreme Court justice, Trump had nominated an appeals court judge, and several other prominent judicial nominees were in the queue to be announced within days.
