Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge temporarily blocks Trump order punishing law firm tied to Clinton

      by

      A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a vast portion of Donald Trump’s executive order that threatened to hurt a major law firm from taking effect, ruling the president used national security concerns as a pretext to punish the firm Perkins Coie for once working with Hillary Clinton.The executive order Trump issued last week stripped security clearances from Perkins Coie lawyers, mandated the termination of any contracts and barred federal government employees from engaging with its attorneys or allowing them access to government buildings.Trump said in the executive order he had deemed Perkins Coie a national security risk principally because it hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, which produced the “dossier” that pushed discredited claims about Trump’s connections to Russia.The US district judge Beryl Howell rejected Trump’s contentions and entered a temporary restraining order on Wednesday that halted most of the executive order. The restraining order did not apply to the revocation of clearances, since Perkins Coie had not sought that in their request.“It sends little chills down my spine,” Howell said of Trump using national security grounds to punish Perkins Coie, comparing the executive order to a “bill of attainder” – a legislative act that inflicts punishment without a trial, and is expressly barred by the US constitution.The justice department had argued that Perkins Coie’s lawsuit was deficient because the executive order had not caused any harm to them – for instance, none of its lawyers had been stopped from entering a federal government building – and that the concerns were speculative.The department also suggested that the claim by Perkins Coie that they had lost clients as a result of the executive order could not be verified because the clients might have changed law firm for any number of reasons.Howell rejected both of those contentions, accepting a 20-page declaration by a partner at Perkins Coie that one justice department lawyer had already declined to meet with him on account of the executive order, and that some clients had expressly cited the order in dropping Perkins Coie.She also sided with Perkins Coie that financial loss counted as irreparable harm in this case – it usually does not – since the continued loss of clients in such a way threatened the very existence of the law firm, given it interacts with the federal government in the majority of its cases.The justice department accurately argued that even if Howell thought the executive order was unwise or otherwise disagreed with its motivations, the power to strip clearances and deem entities a national security threat was part of the president’s powers, and Trump did not need to provide a justification.“It is fundamentally the president’s prerogative, not reviewable by the courts, whether somebody is trustworthy with the nation’s secrets. The president has made that finding here and everything else in the executive order … flow from that determination,” said Chad Mizelle, the justice department’s chief of staff, who, in an unusual move, argued the case before Howell.But Howell took issue with the claim that Perkins Coie was a national security risk purely because Trump viewed the contents of the Fusion GPS dossier, prepared by a former British spy, as entirely false, and noted that the two lawyers involved with the Clinton campaign left the firm years ago.She also said the executive order appeared punitive because Trump had previously failed in suing Perkins Coie in his personal capacity, saying: “This ground is a personal grievance that president Trump has already attempted to pursue in a personal lawsuit that was dismissed in its entirety by a court in the southern district of New York.”“To the extent that this executive order appears to be an instance of president Trump using taxpayer dollars in government resources,” Howell said, “to pursue what is a wholly personal vendetta, advancing such political payback is not something which the government has a cognizable interest.”The roughly three-hour hearing in federal district court in Washington DC came a day after Perkins Coie requested a temporary restraining order on the advice of Williams and Connolly, another elite firm in the nation’s capital known for taking cases against government overreach.Perkins Coie had initially reached out to the firm Quinn Emanuel, which has previously represented people in Trump’s orbit, including Elon Musk, the Trump Organization itself, and New York mayor Eric Adams, whose corruption charges were dropped by the justice department last month.But Quinn Emanuel declined to take Perkins Coie as a client, as its top partners decided not to become involved in a politically-sensitive issue that could make themselves a target by association just as they have been on the rise as a power center in Washington DC.While other law firms have discussed whether to file amicus briefs or declarations supporting Perkins Coie, the firm was ultimately taken on by Williams and Connolly. They advised Perkins Coie to ask for an emergency hearing and temporary restraining order, both of which Howell granted. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump condemned for using ‘Palestinian’ as slur to attack Schumer

      by

      Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as “not Jewish any more”.“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office,” said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or Cair.“He should apologize to the Palestinian and American people. It is the continuing dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in horrific hate crimes against Palestinian-Americans, the US-enabled genocide in Gaza, and decades of denial of Palestinian human rights by successive presidential administrations.”Trump sought to insult Schumer while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, while sitting with the Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin.“Schumer is a Palestinian,” Trump said, amid rambling and incoherent remarks about Democrats in Congress, the war in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Hamas and a looming government shutdown, which Democrats can avoid if enough of their senators vote with Republicans who hold the chamber, putting Schumer in a difficult political position.“As far as I’m concerned, he’s become a Palestinian,” Trump said. “He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish any more. He’s a Palestinian.”Trump has abused Schumer in such terms before, calling him a Palestinian and “a proud member of Hamas”. The president has also regularly questioned why Jewish Americans would vote for Democrats, even amid growing concern about antisemitism among his own aides, advisers and followers.On Wednesday, Schumer did not immediately comment.Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), said: “Donald Trump doesn’t get to decide who is Jewish. Senator Schumer is the country’s highest ranking Jewish American official, and ‘Palestinian’ should not be used as an insult.”She added: “These comments are abhorrent but revealing, and it’s time to call it like it is – Donald Trump is a depraved antisemite, Islamophobe and bigot, which is why the vast majority of Jewish voters have not and will never support him.”Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said: “Again, the goal for this administration isn’t to counter antisemitism or protect Israel. It’s to weaponize antisemitism to go after their political enemies, advance an extreme agenda, and undercut democracy – and it only makes Jews less safe.”In the Oval Office, Martin was asked if as the leader of one of three European countries that recognizes the state of Palestine – the other two being Norway and Spain – he would “inform the president of your views on Gaza”.“I don’t have to inform the president,” Martin said. “He is very well clued into the whole situation. We share the president’s unrelenting focus on peace.”When the same reporter asked about Trump’s recent suggestion Palestinians should be forced to leave Gaza so the US can redevelop the land, Trump interjected, saying: “Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians,” and mocked the reporter for being from Voice of America, a broadcast network run by the federal government. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump officials to reconsider whether greenhouse gases cause harm amid climate rollbacks

      by

      Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an extraordinary cavalcade of pollution rule rollbacks on Wednesday, led by the announcement it would potentially scrap a landmark 2009 finding by the US government that planet-heating gases, such carbon dioxide, pose a threat to human health.The so-called endangerment finding, which followed a supreme court ruling that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases, provides the underpinning for all rules aimed at cutting the pollution that scientists have unequivocally found is worsening the climate crisis.Despite the enormous and growing body of evidence of devastation caused by rising emissions, including trillions of dollars in economic costs, Trump has called the climate crisis a “hoax” and dismissed those concerned by its worsening impacts as “climate lunatics”.Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency would reconsider the endangerment finding due to concerns that it had spawned “an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas”.Zeldin wrote that Wednesday was the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history” and that “we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age”.Environmentalists reacted with horror to the announcement and vowed to defend the overwhelming findings of science and the US’s ability to address the climate crisis through the courts, which regularly struck down Trump’s rollbacks in his first term. “The Trump administration’s ignorance is trumped only by its malice toward the planet,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.“Come hell or high water, raging fires and deadly heatwaves, Trump and his cronies are bent on putting polluter profits ahead of people’s lives. This move won’t stand up in court. We’re going to fight it every step of the way.”In all, the EPA issued 31 announcements within just a few hours that take aim at almost every major environmental rule designed to protect Americans’ clean air and water, as well as a livable climate.The barrage included a move to overturn a Biden-era plan to slash pollution spewing from coal-fired power plants, which itself was a reduced version of an Obama administration initiative that was struck down by the supreme court.The EPA will also revisit pollution standards for cars and trucks, which Zeldin said had imposed a “crushing regulatory regime” upon auto companies that are now shifting towards electric vehicles, consider weakening rules limiting sooty air pollution that’s linked to an array of health problems, potentially axe requirements that power plants not befoul waterways or dump their toxic waste and will consider further narrowing how it implements the Clean Water Act in general.The stunning broadside of actions against pollution rules could, if upheld by the courts, reshape Americans’ environment in ways not seen since major legislation was passed in the 1970s to end an era of smoggy skies and burning rivers that became the norm following American industrialization.Pollutants from power plants, highways and industry cause a range of heart, lung and other health problems, with greenhouse gases among this pollution driving up the global temperature and fueling catastrophic heatwaves, floods, storms and other impacts.“Zeldin’s EPA is dragging America back to the days before the Clean Air Act, when people were dying from pollution,” said Dominique Browning, director of the Moms Clean Air Force. “This is unacceptable. And shameful. We will oppose with all our hearts to protect our children from this cruel, monstrous action.”The EPA’s moves come shortly after its decision to shutter all its offices that deal with addressing the disproportionate burden of pollution faced by poor people and minorities in the US, amid a mass firing of agency staff. Zeldin has also instructed that $20bn in grants to help address the climate crisis be halted, citing potential fraud. Democrats have questioned whether these moves are legal.Former EPA staff have reacted with shock to the upending of the agency.“Today marks the most disastrous day in EPA history,” said Gina McCarthy, who was EPA administrator under Obama. “Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and wellbeing.”The Trump administration has promised additional environmental rollbacks in the coming weeks. The Energy Dominance Council that the president established last month is looking to eliminate a vast array of regulations in an effort to boost the fossil fuel industry, the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, told the oil and gas conference CeraWeek in Houston on Wednesday. “We will come up with the ways that we can cut red tape,” he said. “We can easily get rid of 20-30% of our regulations.”Additional reporting by Dharna Noor More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Education department slashed in half after Trump administration mass firings

      by

      The Trump administration has decimated the US Department of Education, firing more than 1,300 employees in a single day in what looks to be the first step toward abolishing the agency entirely.The mass dismissal – delivered by email after most staff had left for the day on Tuesday – has slashed the department’s workforce by half. Along with voluntary departures and probationary firings, the agency that started 2025 with 4,133 staff now operates with an estimated 2,100 employees two months into Donald Trump’s presidency.“Today’s reduction in force reflects our commitment to efficiency,” Linda McMahon, the US education secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday, insisting that student loans, Pell grants and special education funding would continue uninterrupted. Department officials characterized the eliminated positions as unnecessary administrative roles.Civil rights enforcement has been particularly devastated, with regional offices in New York, San Francisco and Boston either closed entirely or stripped to minimal staffing. These units were already buried under backlogged discrimination investigations following campus protests last year.The cuts came just one day after the department warned 60 universities they face “potential enforcement actions” for alleged violations of federal civil rights laws protecting students from antisemitic discrimination – part of a broader push that recently saw the administration cancel $400m in funding to Columbia University over what it called “continued inaction” on harassment of Jewish students. A prominent Columbia student activist with a green card, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) without charge over the weekend and now faces deportation for his role in last year’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations.“We will not stand by while this regime pulls the wool over the eyes of the American people,” Sheria Smith, the president of the government employees’ union representing department workers, said in a statement.Some school leaders across the country are also alarmed by the implications of the department’s downsizing. Alberto Carvalho, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, warned of “catastrophic harm” if the cuts affect federal funding streams.“We receive in excess of $750m earmarked for poor students, English-language learners, students with disabilities and connectivity investments,” Carvalho said in a video statement. The LA unified school district is estimated to be the second-largest in the country.Greg Casar, the Congressional Progressive caucus chair from Texas, meanwhile accused the administration of blatant class warfare.He told reporters: “Trump and Musk are stealing from our children to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” He called for Senate Democrats to reject the government funding bill that they’ll be voting on this week.Responding to reporter questions on Wednesday, Trump attacked Department of Education employees. “Many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work,” the president said in the Oval Office. “We want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren’t working or not doing a good job. We’re keeping the best people.”The purge aligns with Trump’s campaign pledge to abolish the department entirely – a promise that resonated with the parents’ rights movement that emerged during pandemic school closures. Constitutional experts note that while Trump cannot unilaterally dissolve the agency without congressional approval, his administration appears to be rendering it functionally obsolete.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJust last week, McMahon confirmed on Fox News that Trump plans to sign an executive order targeting the department’s closure, despite polls showing roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose such a move.The administration is already preparing to scatter the department’s functions across the federal government. The New York Times reports that officials visited the treasury department on Monday to discuss transferring student loan operations, while McMahon has floated moving civil rights enforcement to the Department of Justice and disability services to the Department of Health and Human Services – mirroring recommendations from the conservative Project 2025 blueprint.The cuts bear the unmistakable influence of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who leads Trump’s so-called government efficiency initiative. McMahon acknowledged “regular meetings” with Musk’s team, praising them for identifying “waste” in the department.Department headquarters remained closed on Wednesday following the mass terminations, with officials citing security concerns. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump official defending Doge filmed fashion influencer videos from office

      by

      The chief spokesperson for the agency overseeing mass firings as Donald Trump and Elon Musk slash the federal workforce used her office to record fashion influencer videos even as thousands of workers were losing their jobs.McLaurine Pinover, communications director at the US office of personnel management (OPM), posted several Instagram videos during business hours in which she posed in different outfits, CNN reported.One video was posted on 13 February, the day OPM reportedly directed several agencies to lay off thousands of employees with probationary status, including about 20 people on Pinover’s own team.Pinover has issued numerous statements backing moves to fire federal workers, including describing a controversial directive for all workers to list five things they achieve each week as “a commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce”.CNN said Pinover did not respond to questions but said she deleted her Instagram account minutes after being approached for comment. Pinover’s LinkedIn page appeared to have been taken down, too.Videos published by CNN showed Pinover in her office, showing herself wearing various clothing outfits with hashtags including “#dcstyle” and “#dcinfluencer” and the song Busy Woman by Sabrina Carpenter.One post was made on Tuesday, the day the Department of Education announced it was cutting half its workforce, CNN said.Pinover may have benefited from affiliate links to buy clothes in her videos, CNN said, though it noted that she only had approximately 800 followers to her account.Former OPM staffers told CNN the videos were filmed in the office of the communications director, across the hall from an annex used by workers for the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Musk’s vehicle for imposing cuts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne unnamed former staffer said: “I saw it, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me, that’s my office.’ She’s the spokesperson for the agency that is advocating for the firing based on performance and efficiency of the rest of the government workforce, and she’s using government property as a backdrop for her videos.”Jack Miller, Pinover’s predecessor as OPM communications director under Joe Biden, said: “Your number one job as a leader is to protect and support your people. So instead of fighting tooth and nail to keep your team, we’re posting fashion videos. It’s absurd.”Donald K Sherman, chief counsel for the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told CNN: “It is highly problematic that while dedicated civil servants who want to work for the government are being fired for all manner of dubious reasons, or are being forced out by this administration, that someone at the agency leading that attack on the civil service is using their government job for private gain.” More

    • 238 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      The US’s plutocrats and politicians want more, more, more. Matt LeBlanc shows us a better way | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      ‘Nothing will come of nothing,” King Lear said. He was totally wrong, I’m afraid. The truth is, a lot can come from nothing. More specifically: great life satisfaction can come from doing very little.You know who is well aware of that? Matt LeBlanc (AKA Joey from Friends), the king of 90s primetime TV. A TikTok featuring resurfaced interviews in which LeBlanc extols the joys of sloth is generating enormous enthusiasm online. The TikTok pulls from a 2018 interview in which LeBlanc gushed about how much he enjoyed taking time off after Friends and then cuts to a 2017 interview in which he said: “I should be a professional nothing.” Speaking to Conan O’Brien, LeBlanc explained: “Because I think I would like to do not a fucking thing. That’s what I would like to do. Just nothing. Nothing. Zero.” (Same, Matt, same.)Why is this old clip getting so much new attention? Because in a world that fetishises productivity, it seems that people appreciate someone unapologetically enjoying being lazy. Perhaps more importantly, however, at a time when it seems as if the rich and powerful never have enough, but are constantly seeking more, more, more, it’s refreshing to see someone be content with what they have. Obviously, LeBlanc has millions and is a household name, so it’s not like he is making do. Still, having gazillions doesn’t seem to stop others from trying to claw their way to more, does it?Look at tech oligarchs such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, for example. They have more money than God and instead of quietly enjoying it they are throwing funds at Donald Trump so they can try to get even more influence over our daily lives. The one good tech multimillionaire seems to be Tom Anderson, the co-founder of Myspace. After he sold the site for bags of money, he quickly retired; now, he travels the world having fun. He hasn’t tried to set up some dystopian new venture or become a politician. He’s just enjoying life.And look at the US government, which is crammed with people well past the age of retirement who refuse to cede power. US gerontocracy is so absurd that, last year, the then 81-year-old Kay Granger, who had been a Republican congresswoman since 1997, was mysteriously absent from work for months. A reporter found Granger residing at a senior living facility while dealing with “dementia issues”. She could have retired decades before, but, like many of her colleagues, she seemed determined to continue working.The moral of all this? A lot of people leading the US should be more like Joey from Friends. Try to enjoy retirement, please! Just give it a go! Particularly you, Elon. Please try doing a lot, lot less. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump is using antisemitism as a pretext for a war on the first amendment | Judith Levine

      by

      On Saturday night, agents of the Department of Homeland Security arrested and detained the Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil. He is still in Ice custody in a remote Louisiana lockup known for extreme human rights violations, from denial of food and water to medical “care” verging on torture.Khalil, a Palestinian Syrian, emerged as a leader in Columbia’s Gaza solidarity encampment last year and a level-headed negotiator with university officials on behalf of the student protesters. Married to a US citizen, he holds a green card. Neither his American wife, who is eight months pregnant, nor his lawyers were warned of the arrest or told where he would be held.The importance of Khalil’s arrest cannot be overstated. The state entered the home of a legal US resident, seized and imprisoned him and are now trying to deport him on criminal charges of abetting terrorism – for exercising his constitutional right to free speech.This is not the first time in American history that immigrants have been deported or US citizens persecuted for nonviolent political expression deemed dangerous by the government. But it is the first such arrest by an authoritarian regime determined to eliminate its perceived enemies. It will not be the last.Khalil’s ordeal should come as no surprise. The Trump administration announced recently it would revoke the student visas and green cards of “Hamas sympathizers” – AKA supporters of Palestinian liberation.But Trump has long prepared for this moment. As one of his first acts as president in January 2017, he realized his campaign promise to impose “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” in a series of executive orders banning entrance of travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries and suspending the resettlement of Syrian refugees. The first two orders, both called “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”, were struck down as unconstitutional; a third revision passed muster.At the same time, rightwing supporters of Israel were working to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. And since criticism of Israel is equated with sympathy with its enemies, and Israel’s enemies are blanketly tarred as terrorists, antisemitism could also be elided with terrorism.In 2018, a bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) was introduced in the House with 51 co-sponsors. Its purpose: to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by institutions receiving federal funding. The bill referred to the IHRA’s “contemporary examples of antisemitism” as potentially useful evidence of discriminatory intent. But it did not spell out its most politically useful example of antisemitism: that is, criticism of Israel.The AAA was not signed into law, but in December 2019 the White House issued Executive Order 13899, “Combating Anti-Semitism”, to carry it out. Looking back, the document looks almost cautious. As Congress did in its bill, the White House added a caveat: “Agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment.”The 2019 order was a premonition; it didn’t see much use. Anyway, with his characterization of the Nazis marching it Charlottesville as “very fine people” fresh in mind, the president had little credibility with Jews. But now Trump is taking action. One of the executive orders to come off his desk just hours after inauguration was “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats”. The order both elaborates on the Muslim ban and defines the threats more vaguely – thus, more easily attacked.The US must institute “vigilant” vetting of visa applicants, the document says, as well as “aliens” already legally in the country, to ensure that they “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security”. The order also seeks to protect the US against foreigners “who preach . . . sectarian violence [or] the overthrow or replacement of the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands”. Aside from material support for terrorists, the rest is constitutionally protected speech.At the end of the month came “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” expanding EO 13899 in light of “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence” since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. Homing in on schools and colleges, it instructs authorities to use “all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence”. Again, harassment and violence are not defined. And this time there is no mention of the first amendment.The president’s orders on antisemitism, like most of his orders, were also presaged by a plan from the Heritage Foundation: Project Esther, published on the first anniversary of 7 October, aims to vanquish the “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American ‘pro-Palestinian movement’” it calls the “Hamas Support Network”. The so-called “Hamas Support Network” is not only “trying to compel the US government to abandon” Israel; it is bent on no less than “the destruction of capitalism and democracy”.The detailed strategy touts a list of 856 professors at more than 240 universities in the US and Canada who have “openly advocated or supported up to 63 different HSOs [Hamas Support Organizations]”; it indicts, by name, the progressive lawmakers (some of them Jews) who belong to an “active cabal of Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and America-haters in Washington”. It itemizes the myriad “Hamas Support Organizations” from which it would wrest first amendment protection, including Jewish Voice for Peace.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionProject Esther’s methods are classically McCarthyist: “We must conduct legal, private research and investigation to uncover criminal wrongdoing. We must conduct audits, both academic and financial. We must conduct information campaigns that are designed to illuminate and expose – ‘name and shame’ – to undermine HSN and HSO members’ credibility.” The president’s cabinet can’t wait to start.We have been here long before Trump. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, passed by a Congress fearful that noncitizens would take the enemy’s side in a war against the French, allowed the president to deport those deemed dangerous. The accompanying Sedition Act criminalized the publication – or utterance – of “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government.The Alien Registration Act (or Smith Act) of 1940 imposed sentences of up to 20 years for advocacy – as defined by the state – of the violent overthrow of the US government. It also required noncitizens – presumed proponents of violent overthrow – to register with the government. During the second world war, more than 5 million immigrants registered; 900,000 of them were deported as “enemy aliens”.Unless it is repealed, no law is dead. During the cold war, the FBI deployed a 1918 immigration law to imprison and deport foreign-born anarchists, communists, union organizers and pacifists. In his last days as Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, weakly flogged the Antisemitism Awareness Act, again without success. In February, when the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced that the agency would require immigrants to register so it could “track … and compel them to leave the country voluntarily”, she invoked the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. In his inaugural address, Trump vowed to revive the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This week, he reinstated the Muslim ban.To be clear, the Trump administration is not interested in combating antisemitism.Elon Musk does Nazi salutes. The Pentagon’s new deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, is accused of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. The health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has claimed that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. The FBI has announced it will relax investigation of neo-Nazi terrorist cells, which have been regrouping since the president’s pardon of the January 6 insurrectionists, to focus on the surveillance of leftwing organizations including Black Lives Matter and the imaginary formation it calls Antifa.Antisemitism is the pretext for Trump’s interlocking multi-front wars on the first amendment, immigrants and higher education. Khalil is a well-known figure with good lawyers. He will hopefully be released. But his arrest is the opening act in a theatre of deportation that will become more and more real and real for unnumbered others who will disappear without petitions, support committees or press coverage.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books More