Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Alternet: One Trump enabler has done more damage than the rest of them combined | Opinion

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John Roberts came to the U.S. Supreme Court professing the best of intentions. In his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, he promised to serve as chief justice in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” Two years later, in an interview with law professor Jeffrey Rosen, he mused that the court’s many acrimonious 5-to-4 decisions could lead to “a steady wasting away of the notion of the rule of law” and ultimately undermine the court’s perceived legitimacy as a nonpartisan institution.

Roberts said that as the court’s leader, he would stress a “team dynamic,” encouraging his colleagues to join narrow, unanimous decisions rather than sweeping split rulings.

“You do have to put [the Justices] in a situation where they will appreciate, from their own point of view, having the court acquire more legitimacy, credibility, that they will benefit from the shared commitment to unanimity in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise,” he reasoned.

Today, that reasoning is on the cutting-room floor. Although the court’s conservatives today outnumber its liberals by a 6-to-3 margin, the tribunal remains fractured and is widely regarded as just another political branch of government. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in mid-June, neither Republicans nor Democrats see the nation’s top judicial body as neutral. Just 20% of respondents to the poll agreed that the Supreme Court is unbiased while 58% disagreed.

Instead of healing divisions on the bench, Roberts and his Republican confederates old and new, including three justices nominated by Donald Trump, have issued a blistering succession of polarizing and reactionary majority opinions on voting rights, gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, environmental protection, gun control, abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance, the use of dark money in politics, equality for LGBTQ+ people, and perhaps most disastrous of all, presidential immunity.

The court’s reputation has also been tainted by a series of ethics scandals involving its two most right-wing members, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, over the receipt of unreported gifts from Republican megadonors. Alito came under added fire for flying an American flag upside down (sometimes used as a symbol of distress at mostly left-wing protests) outside his Virginia home just a few months after the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

The court’s lurch to the far-right accelerated in the recently concluded 2024-2025 term, driven in large part by the immunity ruling — Trump v. United States, penned by Roberts himself — and the authoritarian power grab that it has unleashed. The decision effectively killed special counsel Jack Smith’s election-subversion case against Trump. It also altered the landscape of constitutional law and the separation of powers, endowing presidents with absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken pursuant to their enumerated constitutional powers, such as pardoning federal offenses and removing executive officers from their departments; and presumptive immunity for all other “official acts” undertaken within the “outer perimeter” of their official duties.

Seemingly emboldened by the ruling, Trump has made good on his boast to be a “dictator on day one” of his second stint in the White House, releasing a torrent of executive orders and proclamations aimed at dismantling federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; eviscerating environmental regulations; imposing sanctions on liberal law firms and elite universities; creating the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); authorizing mass deportations; and ending birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, among dozens of other edicts.

Trump’s executive orders have generated a myriad of legal challenges, some of which reached the Supreme Court this past term as emergency, or “shadow docket,” appeals. The challenges placed Roberts and his conservative benchmates in the uncomfortable but entirely predictable position of balancing the judiciary’s independence as a co-equal branch of government with their fundamental ideological support of Trump’s policy agenda. By the term’s end, it was clear that ideology had won the day.

One of the first signs that Trump 2.0 would cause renewed headaches for the court occurred at the outset of the president’s March 4, 2025, address to a joint session of Congress. As he made his way to the podium, Trump shook hands with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy and with Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Elena Kagan. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary until he approached Chief Justice Roberts, whose hand he took, and with a pat on the shoulder could be heard saying, “Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget.”

Donald Trump greets John Roberts at the U.S. Capitol. Win McNamee/Pool via REUTERS

Whether Trump was thanking Roberts for his immunity ruling was ambiguous, but on March 18, Roberts was compelled to issue a rare public rebuke of the president after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for issuing two temporary restraining orders (TROs) that halted the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said in a statement released by the court.

The rebuke, however, came too late to stop the removal of two planeloads of Venezuelans to El Salvador in apparent defiance of Boasberg’s TROs, sparking concerns that Trump might ultimately defy the high court as well, and trigger a full-scale constitutional crisis.

The deportation controversy, along with several others, quickly came before the Supreme Court. On April 7, by a 5-to-4 vote with Justice Barrett in dissent, the majority granted the administration’s request to lift Boasberg’s TROs and remove the cases for further proceedings to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, where the named plaintiffs and other potential class members in the litigation (who had not yet been deported) were being detained under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). The court’s four-page per curiam order (Trump v. J.G.G.) was unsigned, and, in a small defeat for the administration, also instructed that the detainees had the right to receive advance “notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal” by means of habeas corpus petitions.

In a related unsigned eight-page ruling (A.A.R.P. v. Trump) issued on May 16, this time by a 7-to-2 vote with Justices Thomas and Alito in dissent, the court blocked the administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members held in northern Texas under the AEA, but also held that the detainees could be deported “under other lawful authorities.”

In another unsigned immigration decision released on April 10 (Noem v. Abrego Garcia), the court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a resident of Maryland married to a U.S. citizen who had been sent to his native El Salvador because of an “administrative error.” Ábrego García was brought back to the United States in early June, and was indicted on charges of smuggling migrants and conspiracy.

The court waited until June 23 to release its most draconian immigration decision of the term (DHS v. D.V.D.), holding 6 to 3 that noncitizens under final orders of removal can be deported to third-party countries, even ones with records of severe human-rights violations. And on June 27, in a highly technical but very important procedural ruling (Trump v. CASA) on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, the court held 6 to 3 that district court judges generally lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions. Although the decision did not address the constitutionality of the executive order or the substantive scope of the 14th Amendment’s provision extending citizenship to virtually all persons born in the country, it sent three legal challenges to the order back to three district court judges who had blocked the order from taking effect. The litigation continues.

The immigration cases were decided on the court’s “shadow docket,” a term of art coined by University of Chicago professor William Baude in a 2015 law review article. It describes emergency appeals that come before the court outside of its standard “merits” docket that are typically resolved rapidly, without complete briefing, detailed opinions, or, except in the CASA case, oral arguments.

The Supreme Court has a long history of entertaining emergency appeals—such as last-minute requests for stays of execution in death penalty cases—but emergency requests in high-profile cases proliferated during Trump’s first presidency. According to Georgetown University law professor and shadow-docket scholar Steve Vladeck, the first Trump Administration sought emergency relief 41 times, with the Supreme Court granting relief in 28 of those cases. By comparison, the George W. Bush and Obama administrations filed a combined total of eight emergency relief requests over a16-year period while the Biden administration filed 19 applications across four years.

Fueled by Trump’s authoritarian overreach, the court’s shadow docket exploded to more than 100 cases in 2024-2025 while the merits docket shrank to 56. Not surprisingly, the upsurge has generated significant pushback, with a variety of critics contending the shadow docket diminishes the court’s already limited transparency, and yields hastily written and poorly reasoned decisions that are often used by the conservative wing of the bench to expand presidential power, essentially adopting the “unitary executive” theory as a basic principle of constitutional law. Popularized in the 1980s, the unitary theory posits that all executive power is concentrated in the person of the president, and that the president should be free to act with minimal congressional and judicial oversight.

Although shadow-docket rulings are preliminary in nature, they sometimes have the same practical effect as final decisions on the merits. For example, on May 22, in an unsigned two-page decision (Trump v. Wilcox), the Supreme Court stayed two separate judgments issued by two different U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judges that had blocked the Trump administration from firing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) without cause. The decision remanded the cases back to the D.C. Circuit and the district courts, but even as the board members continue to litigate their unlawful discharge claims, they remain out of work.

Shadow-docket rulings also have an impact on Supreme Court precedents, often foreshadowing how the court will ultimately rule on the merits of important issues. The Wilcox decision called into question the precedential effect of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, decided in 1935, which held that Congress has the constitutional power to enact laws limiting a president’s authority to fire executive officers of independent agencies like the NLRB, which oversees private-sector collective bargaining, and the MSPB, which adjudicates federal employee adverse-action claims.

The three appointed to the court by Democrats dissented. Writing for herself and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Kagan accused the Republican-appointed majority of political bias and acting in bad faith. “For 90 years,” she charged, “Humphrey’s Executor v. United States… has stood as a precedent of this court. And not just any precedent. Humphrey’s undergirds a significant feature of American governance: bipartisan administrative bodies carrying out expertise-based functions with a measure of independence from presidential control.”

Quoting Alexander Hamilton, she added, “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents.” She castigated the majority for recklessly rushing to judgment, writing, “Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law.”

The court also issued other pro-Trump emergency shadow-docket rulings in the 2024-2025 term, permitting the administration to bar transgender people from serving in the military and to withhold $65 million in teacher training grants to states that include DEI initiatives in their operations and curriculums. The court similarly used shadow-docket rulings to endorse DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration records and to insulate DOGE from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Yet despite the court’s deference, Trump complained about his treatment at critical junctures throughout the term. After the shadow-docket ruling blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in May, he took to Truth Social, his social media platform, writing in all caps, “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” It also has been widely reported that Trump has raged in private against his own appointees—especially Justice Barrett—for not being sufficiently supportive of his executive orders and initiatives, and his personal interests.

Meanwhile, back on the merits docket, with Roberts at the helm and with Barrett and the conservatives united, the court has continued to tack mostly to the right, giving Trump nearly everything he wants. On June 18, Roberts delivered a resounding victory to the Make America Great Again movement with a 6-to-3 opinion (United States v. Skrmetti) that upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender transition medical care for minors. The decision will have wide-ranging implications for 26 other states that have enacted similar bans. Echoing the sentiments of many liberal legal commentators, Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern described the ruling as “an incoherent mess of contradiction and casuistry, a travesty of legal writing that injects immense, gratuitous confusion into the law of equal protection.”

Joe Biden delivers remarks on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

In other high-stakes merits cases, the court, by a vote of 6 to 3, approved South Carolina’s plan to remove Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program because of the group’s status as an abortion provider; and held 6 to 3 that parents have a religious right to withdraw their children from instruction on days that “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks are read.

Progressives searching for a thin ray of hope for the future might take some solace in the spirited performance of Justice Jackson, the panel’s most junior member, who has become a dominant force in oral arguments, and a consistent voice in support of social justice. Dissenting from a 7-to-2 decision (Diamond Alternative Energy LLC v. Environmental Protection Agency) that weakened the Clean Air Act, she ripped the majority for giving “fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this court than ordinary citizens.”

Eras of Supreme Court history are generally defined by the accomplishments of the court’s chief justices. The court of John Marshall, the longest-serving chief justice who held office from 1801 to 1835, is remembered for establishing the principle of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. The Court of Earl Warren, whose tenure stretched from 1953 to 1969, is remembered for expanding constitutional rights and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The Roberts Court will be remembered for reversing many of the Warren era’s advances. But unless it suddenly changes course, it will also be remembered as the court that surrendered its independence and neutrality to an authoritarian president.

One Trump enabler has done more damage than the rest of them combined | Opinion

https://www.alternet.org/trump-enabler

Washington Examiner: Judge blocks ICE deportation strategy for paroled immigrants

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A federal judge on Friday blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “expedited removal” deportation strategy to detain paroled immigrants as quickly as possible.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration’s use of expedited removal exceeded the Department of Homeland Security’s legal authority, in addition to being arbitrary and capricious. The order temporarily halts the federal government’s efforts to deport immigrants previously paroled into the United States at a port of entry.

Cobb specifically blocked three actions: a DHS memo dated Jan. 23 directing immigration officials to apply expedited removal as broadly as possible; an ICE directive dated Feb. 18 authorizing officers to consider expedited removal for “paroled arriving aliens”; and a DHS notice dated March 25 terminating the Biden-era parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

The court took issue with the administration’s actions to dismiss parole immigrants’ pending proceedings in immigration court and proceed to arrest them outside the courtroom afterward.

“This case’s underlying question, then, asks whether parolees who escaped oppression will have the chance to plead their case within a system of rules,” Cobb wrote in the 84-page ruling. “Or, alternatively, will they be summarily removed from a country that, as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges, may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape?”

Such an incident occurred in June, when New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for refusing to leave an immigrant whose case was dismissed moments earlier. Lander and his companion were both restrained by masked plainclothes officers as seen in a viral video.

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers have since crafted legislation to bar ICE officers from wearing masks, which the agency says are used to protect its officers from getting doxxed.

Friday’s order is estimated to affect “hundreds of thousands of paroled aliens,” Cobb wrote.

The Trump administration criticized the ruling, saying it defies a Supreme Court ruling from May that upheld the termination of parole status for more than 530,000 illegal immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

“Judge Cobb is flagrantly ignoring the United States Supreme Court, which upheld expedited removals of illegal aliens by a 7-2 majority,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “This ruling is lawless and won’t stand.”

Whine, bitch, whine!

Judge blocks ICE deportation strategy for paroled immigrants
“This ruling is lawless and won’t stand,” the Department of Homeland Security said in response.
Judge blocks ICE deportation strategy for paroled immigrants

Washington Examiner: Federal court halts Trump’s asylum crackdown at US-Mexico border

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A panel of federal judges blocked President Donald Trump‘s day-one proclamation restricting asylum claims at the United States-Mexico border.

One of the first proclamations of Trump’s second term was Proclamation 10888—Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion. The move forbade migrants from claiming asylum when crossing the border at any place outside a port of entry, and restricted requirements to claim asylum for those entering through said ports of entry. In July, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority with the move.

The 3-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit put an administrative pause on Moss’s ruling, which was lifted after their decision Friday.

In his 128-page ruling, Moss argued that Trump’s unilateral moves violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides the “sole and exclusive” means for deporting illegal immigrants. Trump’s proclamation had set up “an alternate immigration system” that violated the law, he claimed, rejecting the government’s argument that an out-of-control border necessitated the move.

“Nothing in the INA or the Constitution grants the President … the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation and implementing guidance,” Moss wrote. “An appeal to necessity cannot fill that void.”

Though he argued that an emergency doesn’t excuse the move, he seemed to cede that there was, in fact, an emergency.

“The Court recognizes that the Executive Branch faces enormous challenges in preventing and deterring unlawful entry into the United States and in adjudicating the overwhelming backlog of asylum claims of those who have entered the country,” Moss wrote. “But the INA, by its terms, provides the sole and exclusive means for removing people already present in the country.”

The White House was quick to respond, arguing that the ruling violated the recent Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of district judges to issue nationwide injunctions on federal government policies.

“A local district court judge has no authority to stop President Trump and the United States from securing our border from the flood of aliens trying to enter illegally. The judge’s decision — which contradicts the Supreme Court’s ruling against granting universal relief — would allow entry into the United States of all aliens who may ever try to come to in illegally,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement obtained by Politico.

Department of Homeland Security Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin derided Moss as a “a rogue district judge” who was “threatening the safety and security of Americans.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for further comment.

Moss’s ruling is the latest of several major legal moves against Trump’s immigration agenda. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration’s use of expedited removal exceeded the Department of Homeland Security’s legal authority.

Cobb blocked three actions from the Trump administration: a Jan. 23 DHS memo directing immigration officials to apply expedited removal as broadly as possible; a Feb. 18 ICE directive authorizing officers to consider expedited removal for “paroled arriving aliens”; and a March 25 DHS notice terminating the Biden-era parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

Federal court halts Trump’s asylum crackdown at US-Mexico border
A district judge blocked Trump’s day-one proclamation cracking down on asylum claims at the southern border.
Federal court halts Trump’s asylum crackdown at US-Mexico border

Newsweek: Smithsonian issues update on Trump’s impeachment exhibit controversy

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The Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Saturday released a statement on its website announcing that it would reinstall President Donald Trump to its exhibit about impeachments, saying that it never intended his removal to be temporary.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment by email outside of normal business hours on Saturday evening.

Why It Matters

The museum removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from its exhibit on presidential impeachments last month, igniting a debate about historical accuracy and political influence in public institutions.

The controversy centered on “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden” exhibit, which included a temporary label about Trump’s impeachments that was added in September 2021. Trump remains the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice.

During his second administration, Trump has influenced the museum, which is independent of the government but receives funding from Congress. In March, he signed an executive order to eliminate “anti-American ideology” in the museum and to “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”

What To Know

The Smithsonian confirmed the temporary label remained in place until July before being removed during a review of legacy content.

In a statement posted to the museum’s website, the Smithsonian said the placard “did not meet the museum’s standards in appearance, location, timeline and overall presentation.”

“It was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and moreover blocked the view of the objects inside its case,” the statement continued. “For these reasons, we removed the placard. We were not asked by any Administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit.”

The museum assured that the exhibit in the coming weeks would see its impeachment section updated to reflect “all impeachment proceedings in our nation’s history.”

“As the keeper of memory for the nation, it is our privilege and responsibility to tell accurate and complete histories,” the museum wrote.

The decision to remove the placard stoked concerns in the public about possible government interference, the shaping of public memory, and the integrity of historical curation at America’s most prominent museum complex.

A Smithsonian spokesperson previously told Newsweek: “In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed. The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”

Why Was Donald Trump Impeached?

Trump faced two impeachment efforts by Democrats during his first administration: First on December 18, 2019, and then again on January 13, 2021—just one week before he left office. He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate both times.

The first impeachment charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his dealings with Ukraine. Both articles passed the House with no support from any Republicans, and some Democrats split from the party.

What People Are Saying

Political analyst Jeff Greenfield wrote on X: “Orwellian is a much-overused phrase; but forcing the Smithsonian to erase the fact of Trump’s impeachments is right out of 1984. Did they drop that stuff down the memory hole?”

Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, posted images of media coverage about Trump’s impeachments on X, writing: “This is what Donald Trump wants you to forget. American never will.”

Former GOP Congressman and Trump critic Joe Walsh called the Post‘s report on X: “Despicable. Reprehensible. Dishonest. Cowardly. Trump’s 2 impeachments are historical facts. They are both part of American history. He’s using the powers of his office to try to rewrite history. I’m done saying ‘shame on him.’ Shame on us for electing him.”

A White House spokesperson told NPR: “We are fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness. The Trump administration will continue working to ensure that the Smithsonian removes all improper ideology and once again unites and instills pride in all Americans regarding our great history.”

What Happens Next?

The Smithsonian acknowledged the need for a comprehensive update of its presidential impeachment exhibit. The institution stated the impeachment section will be revised in the coming weeks to “ensure it accurately represents all historical impeachment proceedings.”

No specific timetable was provided for when Trump’s impeachments or other new content will be permanently reintroduced.

Be sure to leave plenty of room for King Donald’s third impeachment. It will surely be needed if the Felon-in-Chief doesn’t roll over & die first.

Smithsonian issues update on Trump’s impeachment exhibit controversy
The Smithsonian Museum had removed a placard discussing President Donald Trump’s impeachments, sparking outcry amid concern of censorship.

https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-museum-issues-update-trump-impeachment-exhibit-controversy-2108096

LA Times: Ohio city whose Haitian migrants were disparaged by Trump braces to defend them against deportation

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An Ohio city whose Haitian migrants were disparaged by a Donald Trump falsehood last year as he pitched voters on his plans for an immigration crackdown is now bracing to defend the community against possible deportation.

A group of about 100 community members, clergy and Haitian leaders in Springfield gathered this week for several days of training sessions as they prepare to defend potential deportees and provide them refuge.

“We feel that this is something that our faith requires, that people of faith are typically law-abiding people — that’s who we want to be — but if there are laws that are unjust, if there are laws that don’t respect human dignity, we feel that our commitment to Christ requires that we put ourselves in places where we may face some of the same threats,” said Carl Ruby, senior pastor of Central Christian Church.

Ruby said the ultimate goal of the group is to persuade the Trump administration to reverse its decision to terminate legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.

“One way of standing with the Haitians is getting out the message of how much value they bring to the city of Springfield,” he said. “It would be an absolute disaster if we lost 10,000 of our best workers overnight because their TPS ends and they can no longer work.”

In lieu of that, Ruby said, participants in the effort are learning how to help Haitians in other ways. That includes building relationships, accompanying migrants to appointments with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and providing their families with physical shelter.

A city in the crosshairs

Springfield found itself in an unwelcome spotlight last year after Trump amplified false rumors during a presidential debate that members of the mid-size city’s burgeoning Haitian population were abducting and eating cats and dogs. It was the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he promoted throughout his campaign.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in June that it would terminate TPS as soon as Sept. 2 for about 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States, some of whom have lived here for more than a decade. The department said conditions in the island nation have improved adequately to allow their safe return. The United Nations contradicts that assertion, saying that the economic and humanitarian crisis in Haiti has only worsened with the Trump administration’s cuts in foreign aid.

The announcement came three months after the administration revoked legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the United States under a humanitarian parole program as part of a series of measures implemented to curb immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s order preventing the administration from revoking the parole program.

Last month, a federal judge in New York blocked the administration from accelerating an end to Haitians’ TPS protections, which the Biden administration had extended through at least Feb. 3, 2026, citing gang violence, political unrest, a major earthquake in 2021 and other factors.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said at the time that the Trump administration would eventually prevail and that its predecessors treated TPS like a “de facto asylum program.” In the meantime, the government has set the expiration date back to early February.

TPS allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. Immigrants from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and Lebanon, were receiving those protections before Trump took office for his second term in January.

Residents ponder next steps

Charla Weiss, a founding member of Undivided, the group that hosted the Springfield workshop, said participants were asked the question of how far they would go to help Haitian residents avoid deportation.

“The question that I know was before me is, how far am I willing to go to support my passion about the unlawful detainment and deportation of Haitians, in particular here in Springfield?” she said.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a longtime supporter of the Haitian community, was briefed by Springfield leaders during a visit to the city Friday. He told reporters that the state is bracing for the potential of mass layoffs in the region as a result of the TPS policy change, a negative for the workers and the companies that employ them.

“It’s not going to be good,” he said.

Ohio city whose Haitian migrants were disparaged by Trump braces to defend them against deportation
Springfield, Ohio, whose Haitian migrants were vilified by a Trump falsehood during last year’s campaign, is now bracing to defend them against possible deportation.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-08-02/ohio-city-whose-haitian-migrants-were-disparaged-by-trump-braces-to-defend-them-against-deportation

Ohio city whose Haitian migrants were disparaged by Trump braces to defend them against deportation

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ohio-city-whose-haitian-migrants-were-disparaged-by-trump-braces-to-defend-them-against-deportation/ar-AA1JNjlg

MSNBC: Pam [Bimbo #3] Bondi’s cynical, misleading attack on Judge Boasberg

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Another crack in the foundation of American democracy.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department escalated its fight with the judiciary by filing an ethics complaint against Judge James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C. Boasberg is overseeing the case challenging the Trump administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison without due process. The new complaint, signed by Attorney General Pam [Bimbo #3] Bondi’s chief of staff, accuses Boasberg of making improper comments about President Donald Trump.

Only those wearing MAGA-tinted glasses could fail to see this complaint for what it is: another brazen attack on the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers, and another crack in the foundation of American democracy.

The controversy began March 15, when five Venezuelans sued Trump and other administration officials to block their imminent deportation under a 2025 presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act. That 1798 law allows the removal of foreign citizens when there is a “declared war … or any invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign nation against the United States. The plaintiffs were among hundreds being deported to a country other than their homeland. They were not given an opportunity to challenge the legality of their deportation, or even to contest the government’s allegations that they were gang members. Comparing the situation to a Kafka-esque nightmare, Boasberg ordered the administration to stop the deportations.

In April, the case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled for the administration on a legal technicality regarding the proper mechanism and jurisdiction for the suit. At the same time, the court unanimously affirmed that those facing deportation must be allowed to bring a legal challenge before removal. The case was sent back to Boasberg and remains ongoing.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Boasberg also found that the government had likely committed criminal contempt of court by willfully disobeying his order to stop deportations. He offered the government a chance to correct its contempt before referring the case for prosecution, but in April a three-judge panel from the D.C. appellate court paused the contempt proceedings without addressing the merits. Curiously, the pause has lasted for months, leaving the contempt action in limbo.

Then came Monday. The Justice Department formally accused Boasberg of committing misconduct during a national judicial conference held March 11 — before the deportation case began. The complaint alleges Boasberg “attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice [John] Roberts and roughly two dozen other federal judges” by expressing “his belief that the Trump Administration would ‘disregard rulings of federal courts’ and trigger ‘a constitutional crisis.’” In the AEA case, then, Boasberg “began acting on his preconceived belief that the Trump Administration would not follow court orders.” The DOJ argues that Boasberg’s “words and deeds” harmed “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

To begin with, the DOJ’s complaint is misleading: The memo it cites, summarizing the conference, says Boasberg “raised his colleagues’ concerns,” not his own. But no matter who raised the concerns, they would be right on the mark. Trump’s record of contempt for the judiciary is well established. Throughout his first term, he repeatedly criticized judges who ruled against the administration. While out of office, Trump repeatedly leveled personal attacks against not only the judges presiding over his criminal and civil cases, but even court staff and their family members. And Trump specifically called for Boasberg’s impeachment in March after the judge ordered a temporary pause in deportations.

Although Trump has publicly said that he would follow court orders, his administration’s track record on respecting judicial authority suggests otherwise. For example, in early July, the Justice Department filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the entire bench of federal judges in Maryland, challenging an administrative order issued by their chief judge regarding deportation cases. Disturbingly, there is also evidence that Emil Bove, whom the Senate confirmed Tuesday to an appellate judgeship, told DOJ prosecutors that, if necessary, they should ignore court orders that stop deportations.

Given this track record, for the Trump administration to accuse Boasberg of undermining public confidence in the judiciary is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. In truth, the complaint against Boasberg is an obvious stunt. The administration is following the old legal adage: When the facts and the law are against you, “pound the table and yell like hell.”

No matter where this complaint goes from here, it is likely to have a chilling effect on judicial independence. Judges routinely discuss their constitutional approach or emerging legal trends in public, including during Senate confirmation hearings. This complaint puts a target on the backs of judges who speak out against executive overreach or comment on other broad legal issues that could be perceived as contrary to administration policy.

It will threaten judicial independence, undermine judicial legitimacy, and ultimately show that, for this administration, legal authority depends on political loyalty rather than adherence to the rule of law.

The justices of the Supreme Court appear to at least understand this in principle. Speaking at a judicial ceremony in May, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized judicial independence is “crucial” to “check the excesses of the Congress or the executive.” Against the backdrop of Trump’s attacks on the federal judiciary, Roberts reiterated the familiar simile that judges are like umpires, responsible for calling balls and strikes fairly and impartially.

It’s less clear whether Roberts and his colleagues are prepared to fight for that ideal. After all, when a manager’s antics — like kicking dirt at the umpire’s feet or screaming in his face — begin to undermine the integrity of the game itself, eventually even the most restrained umpire must be prepared to eject him. Without that implicit threat, the game will collapse under the bullying of any manager who is unwilling to follow the rules everyone else plays by.

No one should tolerate that: not in a sporting event and certainly not in an arena when our nation and democracy are at stake.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/justice-department-pam-bondi-judge-boasberg-rcna222067

Newsweek: Trump admin warns DACA recipients to self-deport

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The Trump administration advised Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to self-deport and warned that they are “not automatically protected from deportation.”

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, told Newsweek the warning is “not new or news.”

“Illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA] are not automatically protected from deportations,” she said. “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country. Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime.”

Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose state contains the highest number of DACA recipients, told Newsweek the move “highlights the Trump administration’s hypocrisy” and shows that “they do not want to detain and deport the worst of the worst.”

“Their chaos campaign is all about detaining and deporting as many people as possible without a regard to people’s legal rights, including intercepting Americans, Dreamers, kids, people with legal protections and those following immigration rules and even U.S.-born citizens into their indiscriminate dragnet.,” she said. “It’s dangerous precedent when deportations matter more than basic rights or a functional U.S. immigration system.”

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump pledged to undertake the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history on the campaign trail and quickly moved to increase immigration enforcement upon his return to the White House. However, he has offered mixed signals on DACA.

Although Trump sought to end DACA during his first term, he told NBC News’ Meet the Press last December that he wanted to find a way to allow DACA recipients to stay in the United States.

Former President Barack Obama introduced the DACA program in 2012. It offered protections and work authorization for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. But its legal status has remained in limbo for years, and the latest comments from the administration reflect the challenges faced by DACA recipients, commonly referred to as “Dreamers.”

What To Know

McLaughlin first warned that DACA recipients should self-deport in a statement provided to NPR earlier this week.

She told Newsweek on Thursday that undocumented migrants can “take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.”

“The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now,” she said. “We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live American dream.”

The administration has not outright ended DACA, but the statement reflects a shift in policy toward these migrants from President Joe Biden‘s administration, which was more supportive of protections for Dreamers.

Reports have emerged of DACA recipients being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Erick Hernandez Rodriguez, 34, is among the DACA recipients facing deportation. DHS said he was arrested for allegedly trying to illegally cross the southern border after allegedly self-deporting. His attorney, Valerie Sigamani, said he did not self-deport and made a wrong turn while completing a ride-share trip in San Ysidro, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

He has been in the U.S. for 20 years. His wife, Nancy Rivera, is a U.S. citizen, and the couple has a daughter together and is expecting a son. He had begun the process for permanent legal resident status.

DACA recipients are required to receive advance parole before leaving the U.S. to avoid loss of protection and deportation risk. There are more than 500,000 DACA recipients living in the U.S., according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

What People Are Saying

President Donald Trump told Meet the Press in December: “The Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the dreamers. The dreamers, we’re talking many years ago, they were brought into this country. Many years ago. Some of them are no longer young people. And in many cases, they’ve become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases, they have small businesses. Some cases they might have large businesses. And we’re going to have to do something with them.”

Anabel Mendoza, communications director for United We Dream, told NPR: “We’ve known that DACA remains a program that has been temporary. We’ve sounded the alarms over that. What we are seeing now is that DACA is being chipped away at.”

What Happens Next

DACA’s future remains in limbo, with legal challenges ongoing in federal courts and the administration continuing to enforce strict immigration statutes.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-daca-recipients-self-deport-2106991

Washington Post: Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum

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The Smithsonian said it restored the display to an earlier version, which notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.

After this story published, the Smithsonian said in a statement that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.”

A temporary label including content about Trump’s impeachments had been on display since September 2021 at the Washington museum, a Smithsonian spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that it was intended to be a short-term addition to address current events. Now, the exhibit notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

In addition to describing Trump’s two impeachments, the temporary label — which read “Case under redesign (history happens)” — also offered information about the impeachments of presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, as well as Richard M. Nixon, who would have faced impeachment had he not resigned. The Post viewed a photograph of the temporary signage.

Now that display has returned to the way it appeared in 2008, according to the Smithsonian spokesperson.

“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”

The change coincides with broader concerns about political interference at the Smithsonian and how the institution charged with preserving American history could be shaped by the Trump administration’s efforts to exert more control over its work.

“The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden” opened in 2000 and was curated by a team that included then-museum director Spencer Crew, curator Harry Rubenstein and historian Lonnie G. Bunch III, who now leads the institute as secretary.

The impeachment case includes a photograph of the prosecutors in Andrew Johnson’s 1868 case, copies of the investigative report that launched Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings in 1999 and a damaged filing cabinet from the Watergate scandal that would prompt Nixon to resign in 1974.

The online companion for the display briefly mentions Trump’s impeachments, but does not provide any further information about the cases. And a search of the history museum’s collection for “impeachment” yields 125 results for Johnson, Nixon and Clinton — and a single “Impeach Trump” button from a 2017 environmental protest.

The Smithsonian spokesperson said that a large gallery like “The American Presidency” requires a “significant amount of time and funding to update and renew.” Elsewhere in the exhibition, however, visitors can find more recent items, including commemorative pins from Trump and Joe Biden’s inaugurations in 2017 and 2021 and a large wall display featuring every U.S. president.

In January 2020, following Trump’s first impeachment, a political history curator at the American History Museum told The Post that he was on a quest to acquire the right objects to tell the story of Trump’s first impeachment. At the time, he could not predict when the display would be updated, but he said work was underway to change labels and add items.

The Smithsonian that month also announced its plans to update the impeachment section, reaffirming its commitment to actively engage “with the history, spirit and complexity of the United States’ democratic experiment by collecting, documenting and sharing the American political system, including presidential history.”

Trump is the only president in history to have been impeached twice. In 2019, he was charged by the House with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for his attempts to withhold military aid meant for Ukraine and pressure its government to investigate his political rival Biden. He was acquitted by the Senate in 2020. Then, just over a year later, Trump was impeached again, for incitement of insurrection following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. He was acquitted a second time, after leaving office.

Since returning to the White House in January for his second term, Trump has attempted to exert influence over prominent cultural institutions, including by taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, making drastic changes at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and imposing budget cuts on the National Park Service.

In March, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate “anti-American ideology” across the Smithsonian museums and “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”

Months later, Trump attempted to fire Kim Sajet, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, for being a “highly partisan” person — though he had no authority to do so. The White House later provided a list of 17 instances it said supported the president’s claims about her, including the caption for the museum’s presidential portrait of Trump mentioning his two impeachments and “incitement of insurrection” for the events of Jan. 6.

In response, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents reasserted in June that only the institution’s secretary could fire museum directors, but also announced it would scrutinize content across its museum for partisan bias. “As directed by the Board of Regents, we will undertake an assessment of the Institution, evaluating the need for any changes to policies, procedures, or personnel, and I will share our findings and recommendations with the Board,” Bunch wrote in an email to Smithsonian employees. Shortly after, Sajet announced her departure, explaining to staff that she was leaving because her presence had become a distraction from the Smithsonian’s mission.

Last week, the celebrated painter Amy Sherald pulled an upcoming exhibit from the Portrait Gallery, citing concerns that the museum considered removing her painting of a transgender woman posing as the Statue of Liberty.

“While no single person is to blame, it’s clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role,” Sherald said in a statement.

History maybe temporarily hidden or rewritten, but the disgrace of King Donald will be back with a vengeance in due time, and probably with a much larger display!

Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum
A temporary placard, on display since 2021, described the president’s historic impeachments. Officials said the exhibit was restored to an earlier version following a review of legacy content.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/07/31/trump-impeachment-smithsonian

Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/smithsonian-removes-trump-from-impeachment-exhibit-in-american-history-museum/ar-AA1JGees

Wall Street Journal: Judges Continue to Block Trump Policies Following Supreme Court Ruling

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Even with new curbs on their powers, district judges have found ways to broadly halt some administration actions

When the Supreme Court issued a blockbuster decision in June limiting the authority of federal judges to halt Trump administration policies nationwide, the president was quick to pronounce the universal injunction all but dead.

One month later, states, organizations and individuals challenging government actions are finding a number of ways to notch wins against the White House, with judges in a growing list of cases making clear that sweeping relief remains available when they find the government has overstepped its authority.

In at least nine cases, judges have explicitly grappled with the Supreme Court’s opinion and granted nationwide relief anyway. That includes rulings that continue to halt the policy at the center of the high court case: President Trump’s effort to pare back birthright citizenship. Judges have also kept in place protections against deportations for up to 500,000 Haitians, halted mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, and prevented the government from terminating a legal-aid program for mentally ill people in immigration proceedings.

To accomplish this, litigants challenging the administration have used a range of tools, defending the necessity of existing injunctions, filing class-action lawsuits and invoking a law that requires government agencies to act reasonably: the Administrative Procedure Act.

It is a rare point of consensus among conservative and liberal lawyers alike: The path to winning rulings with nationwide application is still wide open.

“There are a number of highly significant court orders that are protecting people as we speak,” said Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group that has brought many cases against the Trump administration. “We’re continuing to get that relief.”

Conservative legal advocates also continue to see nationwide injunctions as viable in some circumstances. “We’re still going to ask for nationwide injunctions when that’s the only option to protect our clients,” said Dan Lennington, a lawyer at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which has challenged race and sex-based preferences in federal policies.

The Supreme Court’s decision was long in the making, with Democratic and Republican administrations in turn chafing against their signature policies being held up by a single district court judge. The 6-3 ruling said that when judges find that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, their injunctions against the government can’t be broader than what is needed to provide complete relief to the parties who sued.

“Many judges with policy disagreements continue to abuse their positions to prevent the President from acting by relying on other laws to provide universal relief,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “Regardless of these obstacles, the Trump Administration will continue to aggressively fight for the policies the American people elected him to implement.”

Trump’s birthright policy would deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. unless one of their parents was a citizen or permanent legal resident. Judges in the weeks since the high court decision have ruled that blocking the policy everywhere remains the proper solution.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston again said a ruling with nationwide application was the only way to spare the plaintiffs—a coalition of 20 Democratic-run states and local governments—from harm caused by an executive order he said was unconstitutional. The judge noted that families frequently move across state lines and that children are born in states where their parents don’t reside.

“A patchwork or bifurcated approach to citizenship would generate understandable confusion among state and federal officials administering the various programs,” wrote Sorokin, “as well as similar confusion and fear among the parents of children” who would be denied citizenship by Trump’s order.

In a separate decision last week involving a different group of states that sued Trump, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reached a similar conclusion. Both rulings showed that state attorneys general remain well positioned to win broad injunctions against the federal government when they can demonstrate executive overreach.

“You’ve got these elite litigation shops in the states,” Tennessee’s Republican attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, said of offices such as his. “You’re gonna figure out a way to continue to be one of the most active participants in the judicial system.”

A New Hampshire judge has also blocked Trump’s birthright order after litigants in that case, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, used another pathway the Supreme Court left open: filing class-action lawsuits on behalf of a nationwide group of plaintiffs.

Recent cases also underscore that the Administrative Procedure Act, long a basis for lawsuits against administrations of both parties, remains a potent tool. The law allows judges to set aside agency actions they deem arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion.

Judges have blocked Trump policies in a half-dozen cases in the past month under the APA, and in almost every instance have specifically said they aren’t precluded in doing so by the Supreme Court.

Zach Shelley, a lawyer at the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, filed a case using the APA in which a judge this month ordered the restoration of gender-related healthcare data to government websites, which officials had taken down after an anti-transgender executive order from Trump.

The act was the obvious choice to address a nationwide policy “from the get-go,” Shelley said.

District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., said administration officials ignored common sense by taking down entire webpages of information instead of removing specific words or statements that ran afoul of Trump’s gender order. “This case involves government officials acting first and thinking later,” Bates wrote. Nothing in the high court’s ruling prevented him from ordering the pages be put back up, the judge said.

The Justice Department argued that Trump administration officials had acted lawfully and reasonably in implementing the president’s order to remove material promoting gender ideology.

The department is still in the early stages of attempting to use the Supreme Court’s ruling to its advantage, and legal observers continue to expect the decision will help the administration in some cases.

In one, a New York judge recently narrowed the scope of a ruling blocking the administration’s attempts to end contracts with Job Corps centers that run career-training programs for low-income young adults.

If the lawsuit had instead been filed as a class action or litigated in a different way, though, “the result may very well be different,” Judge Andrew Carter wrote.

Judges Continue to Block Trump Policies Following Supreme Court Ruling

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/judges-continue-to-block-trump-policies-following-supreme-court-ruling-bf20d1ef

Judges Continue to Block Trump Policies Following Supreme Court Ruling

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/judges-continue-to-block-trump-policies-following-supreme-court-ruling/ar-AA1Jqdn4

AOL: Chokeholds, bikers and ‘roving patrols’: Are Trump’s ICE tactics legal?

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An appellate court appears poised to side with the federal judge who blocked immigration agents from conducting “roving patrols” and snatching people off the streets of Southern California, likely setting up another Supreme Court showdown.

Arguments in the case were held Monday before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with the judges at times fiercely questioning the lawyer for the Trump administration about the constitutionality of seemingly indiscriminate sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“I’m just trying to understand what would motivate the officers … to grab such a large number of people so quickly and without marshaling reasonable suspicion to detain,” said Judge Ronald M. Gould of Seattle.

Earlier this month, a lower court judge issued a temporary restraining order that has all but halted the aggressive operations by masked federal agents, saying they violate the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Justice Department called the block that was ordered by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong “the first step” in a “wholesale judicial usurpation” of federal authority.

“It’s a very serious thing to say that multiple federal government agencies have a policy of violating the Constitution,” Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Yaakov M. Roth argued Monday. “We don’t think that happened, and we don’t think it’s fair we were hit with this sweeping injunction on an unfair and incomplete record.”

That argument appeared to falter in front of the 9th Circuit panel. Judges Jennifer Sung of Portland, Ore., and Marsha S. Berzon of San Francisco heard the case alongside Gould — all drawn from the liberal wing of an increasingly split appellate division.

“If you’re not actually doing what the District Court found you to be doing and enjoined you from doing, then there should be no harm,” Sung said.

Frimpong’s order stops agents from using race, ethnicity, language, accent, location or employment as a pretext for immigration enforcement across Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The judge found that without other evidence, those criteria alone or in combination do not meet the 4th Amendment bar for reasonable suspicion.

“It appears that they are randomly selecting Home Depots where people are standing looking for jobs and car washes because they’re car washes,” Berzon said. “Is your argument that it’s OK that it’s happening, or is your argument that it’s not happening?”

Roth largely sidestepped that question, reiterating throughout the 90-minute hearing that the government had not had enough time to gather evidence it was following the Constitution and that the court did not have authority to constrain it in the meantime.

Read more:Trump administration asks appeals court to lift restrictions on SoCal immigration raids

Arguments in the case hinge on a pair of dueling Golden State cases that together define the scope of relief courts can offer under the 4th Amendment.

“It’s the bulwark of privacy protection against policing,” said professor Orin S. Kerr of Stanford Law School, whose work on 4th Amendment injunctions was cited in the Justice Department’s briefing. “What the government can do depends on really specific details. That makes it hard for a court to say here’s the thing you can’t do.”

In policing cases, every exception to the rule has its own exceptions, the expert said.

The Department of Justice has staked its claim largely on City of Los Angeles vs. Lyons, a landmark 1983 Supreme Court decision about illegal chokeholds by the Los Angeles Police Department. In that case, the court ruled against a blanket ban on the practice, finding the Black motorist who had sued was unlikely to ever be choked by the police again.

“That dooms plaintiffs’ standing here,” the Justice Department wrote.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and its partners point to other precedents, including the San Diego biker case Easyriders Freedom F.I.G.H.T. vs. Hannigan. Decided in the 9th Circuit in 1996, the ruling offers residents of the American West more 4th Amendment protection than they might have in Texas, New York or Illinois.

In the Easyriders case, 14 members of a Southland motorcycle club successfully blocked the California Highway Patrol from citing almost any bikers they suspected of wearing the wrong kind of helmet, after the court ruled a more narrow decision would leave the same bikers vulnerable to future illegal citations.

“The court said these motorcyclists are traveling around the state, so we can’t afford the plaintiff’s complete relief unless we allow this injunction to be statewide,” said professor Geoffrey Kehlmann, who directs the 9th Circuit Appellate Clinic at Loyola Law School.

“In situations like this, where you have roving law enforcement throughout a large area and you have the plaintiffs themselves moving throughout this large area, you necessarily need to have that broader injunction,” Kehlmann said.

Frimpong cited Easyriders among other precedent cases in her ruling, saying it offered a clear logic for the districtwide injunction. The alternative — agents sweeping through car washes and Home Depot parking lots stopping to ask each person they grab if they are a plaintiff in the suit — “would be a fantasy,” she wrote.

Another expert, Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said the Los Angeles Police Department chokehold case set a standard that litigants “need to show it’s likely it could happen to you again in the future.”

But, he added: “The 9th Circuit has said, here’s ways you can show that.”

The tests can include asking whether the contested enforcement is limited to a small geographic area or applied to a small group of people, and whether it is part of a policy.

“After the injunction here, the secretary of Homeland Security said, ‘We’re going to continue doing what we’re doing,’” Berzon said. “Is that not a policy?”

Roth denied that there was any official policy driving the sweeps.

“Plaintiffs [argue] the existence of an official policy of violating the 4th Amendment with these stops,” Roth said. “The only evidence of our policy was a declaration that said, ‘Yes, reasonable suspicion is what we require when we go beyond a consensual encounter.'”

But Mohammad Tajsar of the ACLU of Southern California, part of a coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys challenging cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests, argued that the federal policy is clear.

“They have said, ‘If it ends in handcuffs, go out and do it,'” he told the panel. “There’s been a wink and a nod to agents on the ground that says, ‘Dispatch with the rigors of the law and go out and snatch anybody out there.'”

He said that put his organization’s clients in a similar situation to the bikers.

“The government did not present any alternatives as to what an injunction could look like that would provide adequate relief to our plaintiffs,” Tajsar said. “That’s fatal to any attempt by them to try to get out from underneath this injunction.”

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, he said, are “likely to ensnare just as many people with status as without status.”

The Justice Department said ICE already complies with the 4th Amendment, and that the injunction risks a “chilling effect” on lawful arrests.

“If it’s chilling ICE from violating the Constitution, that’s where they’re supposed to be chilled,” Chemerinsky said.

A ruling is expected as soon as this week. Roth signaled the administration is likely to appeal if the appellate panel does not grant its stay.

Chokeholds, bikers and ‘roving patrols’: Are Trump’s ICE tactics legal?
The appellate court battle over whether ICE can resume ‘roving patrols’ across the Los Angeles area hangs on dueling legal precedents that involve the LAPD and the CHP.

https://www.aol.com/chokeholds-bikers-roving-patrols-trumps-232936992.html