Tag Archives: Ilya Somin

New York Times: Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say

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In disputes over protests, deportations and tariffs, the president has invoked statutes that may not provide him with the authority he claims.

To hear President Trump tell it, the nation is facing a rebellion in Los Angeles, an invasion by a Venezuelan gang and extraordinary foreign threats to its economy.

Citing this series of crises, he has sought to draw on emergency powers that Congress has scattered throughout the United States Code over the centuries, summoning the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor, sending scores of migrants to El Salvador without the barest hint of due process and upending the global economy with steep tariffs.

Legal scholars say the president’s actions are not authorized by the statutes he has cited and are, instead, animated by a different goal.

“He is declaring utterly bogus emergencies for the sake of trying to expand his power, undermine the Constitution and destroy civil liberties,” said Ilya Somin, a libertarian professor at Antonin Scalia Law School who represents a wine importer and other businesses challenging some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

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Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/trump-emergency-powers-invasion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.N08.tEO-.S_2DmAE6Yws9&smid=url-share

New York Times: Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say

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In disputes over protests, deportations and tariffs, the president has invoked statutes that may not provide him with the authority he claims.

To hear President Trump tell it, the nation is facing a rebellion in Los Angeles, an invasion by a Venezuelan gang and extraordinary foreign threats to its economy.

Citing this series of crises, he has sought to draw on emergency powers that Congress has scattered throughout the United States Code over the centuries, summoning the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor, sending scores of migrants to El Salvador without the barest hint of due process and upending the global economy with steep tariffs.

Legal scholars say the president’s actions are not authorized by the statutes he has cited and are, instead, animated by a different goal.

“He is declaring utterly bogus emergencies for the sake of trying to expand his power, undermine the Constitution and destroy civil liberties,” said Ilya Somin, a libertarian professor at Antonin Scalia Law School who represents a wine importer and other businesses challenging some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/trump-emergency-powers-invasion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.N08.tEO-.S_2DmAE6Yws9&smid=url-share

Associated Press: The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term

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Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors.

Whether it’s leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion.

An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump’s 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors.

The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress’ authority and advance his agenda.

“What’s notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,” said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs.

The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States has rebounded from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-emergency-powers-tariffs-immigration-5cbe386d8f2cc4a374a5d005e618d76a

Talking Points Memo: The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

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The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.

When top Trump adviser Stephen Miller threatened on May 9 that the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus in response to an “invasion” from undocumented immigrants, he was operating on a fringe legal theory that a right-wing faction has been working to legitimize for more than a decade.

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Hard-liners have referred to immigrants as “invaders” as long as the U.S. has had immigration. By 2022, invasion rhetoric, which had previously been relegated to white nationalist circles, had become such a staple of Republican campaign ads that most of the public agreed an invasion of the U.S. via the southern border was underway.

Now, however, the claim that the U.S. is under invasion has become the legal linchpin of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

The claim is Trump’s central justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 140 Venezuelans to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison, without due process. (The administration cited different legal authority for the remaining deportees.) The Trump administration contends they are members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is directing to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Lawyers and families of many of the deportees have presented evidence the prisoners are not even members of Tren de Aragua.

The contention is also the throughline of Trump’s day one executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” That document calls for the expansion of immigration removal proceedings without court hearings and for legal attacks against sanctuary jurisdictions, places that refuse to commit local resources to immigration enforcement.

So far, no court has bought the idea that the U.S. is truly under invasion….

And therein lies the problem: The Trump regime is off pursuing an unconstitutional tangent to solve a problem that is improperly framed as an “invasion”.

It’s a long well-researched article. Please click on the link below and read the entire article.

The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
This article first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-invasion-invention-the-far-rights-long-legal-battle-to-make-immigrants-the-enemy

USA Today: Trump uses Supreme Court birthright citizenship case in bid to limit judges’ power

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President Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to limit the ability of judges to put his policies on hold while they’re being challenged.

Judges across the country have blocked some of President Donald Trump’s biggest policy changes − roadblocks the president has called “toxic and unprecedented.”

Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to fix that.

How inclined the justices might be to do so could become apparent on May 15 when the court considers Trump’s move to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States regardless of whether their parents are citizens or permanent residents.

The president hasn’t yet asked the high court to consider the legality of his policy – which was called “blatantly unconstitutional” by the first judge to review it.

Instead, Trump wants the justices to narrow the scope of multiple court orders keeping his new rules on hold until the citizenship policy has been fully litigated.

The administration argues that, for now, Trump should be able to impose the change on everyone except the 18 parents named in the lawsuits or, at most, any member of two immigrant rights groups or residents of a state that challenged the policy.

Trump uses Supreme Court birthright citizenship case in bid to limit judges’ power
President Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to limit the ability of judges to put his policies on hold while they’re being challenged.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/11/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-trump/83541130007

NBC News: Trump admin’s threat to suspend core U.S. legal right sparks outcry, alarm

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Stephen “Goebbels” Miller said the president is “actively looking at” suspending the right for people to see a judge if detained in the U.S. Legal scholars say that Congress, not Trump, has that power.

Legal experts and Democrats expressed growing alarm over the weekend that Trump administration officials are openly discussing unilaterally suspending habeas corpus — a bedrock American legal right — without the approval of Congress.

The writ of habeas corpus, which dates back centuries, grants anyone detained in the U.S. the right to see a judge, challenge the government’s evidence against them and present a defense.

But White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen “Goebbels” Miller downplayed its significance on Friday and suggesting that the administration could move to suspend it unilaterally. “That’s an option we’re actively looking at,” “Goebbels” Miller told reporters at the White House.

Trump admin’s threat to suspend core U.S. legal right sparks outcry and alarm
Stephen Miller said the president is “actively looking at” suspending the right for people to see a judge if detained in the U.S. Legal scholars say that Congress, not Trump, has that power.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/legal-experts-habeas-corpus-stephen-miller-rcna206130