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    ‘The authoritarian playbook’: Trump targets judges, lawyers … and law itself

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    As Donald Trump aggressively seeks revenge against multiple foes in the US, he’s waging a vendetta using executive orders and social media against judges, law firms, prosecutors, the press and other vital American institutions to stifle dissent and exact retribution.Legal scholars say the president’s menacing attacks, some of which Trump’s biggest campaign backer, the billionaire Elon Musk, has echoed, are aimed at silencing critics of his radical agenda and undercut the rule of law in authoritarian ways that expand his own powers.“Trump’s moves are from the authoritarian playbook,” said the Harvard law school lecturer and retired Massachusetts judge Nancy Gertner. “You need to delegitimize institutions that could be critics. Trump is seeking to use the power of the presidency to delegitimize institutions including universities, law firms, judges and others. It’s the opposite of American democracy.”In a stunning move on Tuesday, Trump railed that a top Washington DC judge ought to be impeached for ruling to halt the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans allegedly including gang members, sparking the chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts, hours later to issue a strong statement against calls to impeach judges for their rulings.Legal scholars sharply criticize other attacks by Trump and the Maga world on judges who have issued rulings against executive orders or Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), with the goal of weakening the judicial branch to boost Trump’s powers.Fears about Trump’s war on his critics rose this month as the president issued executive orders penalizing three big law firms including Covington & Burling and Perkins Coie. Critics say Trump’s sanctions against the firms were sparked by their clients, respectively ex-special counsel Jack Smith, who brought charges against Trump for trying to subvert his 2020 election loss, and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, which hired the firm that helped pay for a dossier alleging collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign.Those executive orders, which included barring some firms from entering federal buildings, interacting with agencies and taking away security clearances from some lawyers, were widely seen as punitive measures to hurt them financially.District Judge Beryl Howell on 12 March blocked the Trump administration from enforcing key parts of its order against Perkins Coie, which she stated “runs head-on into the wall of first amendment protections”.The third law firm Trump targeted with an executive order was Paul Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, whose former partner Mark Pomerantz later tried to build a criminal case against Trump when he worked at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. But Trump’s executive order was reversed on 19 March after the firm agreed to provide $40m in pro bono services to support administration priorities.Legal scholars have also denounced justice department firings or demotions of some two dozen lawyers who worked on cases against Trump allies convicted for attacking the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.In a stark show of vindictiveness and historical revisionism about his role inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol and baseless claims that his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden was rigged, Trump addressed a justice department gathering on 14 March and proclaimed he intended to end the “weaponization” of the law against him.In an angry and rambling talk, Trump singled out among others Jack Smith, to whom Covington provided pro bono help, and the former Perkins lawyer Marc Elias, a key figure in fighting Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.Trump blasted them and others who had investigated him as “bad people, really bad people … They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country, but in the end, the thugs failed and the truth won.”Shortly after Trump spoke, the Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who taught constitutional law for two decades, gave a sharp rebuttal at a rally outside the justice department. “No other president in American history has stood in the Department of Justice to proclaim an agenda of criminal prosecution and retaliation against his political foes,” Raskin said.Legal experts say Trump’s attacks on lawyers and judges are dangerous.“The sheer vindictiveness with which Trump and his allies have targeted lawyers – both in government service and in private practice – and judges has disrupted lives, inflicted costs and even raised security concerns,” said Daniel Richman, a Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor.“I’m sure some are intimidated, and that certainly seems the intent. Others will cozy up to him. But the more this occurs – and I don’t imagine it will stop – the more it will look like Trump’s problem is less with those who practice law and more with law itself. Even allies who cheer his tactics may soon wonder how they would fare in a lawless world.”Other legal scholars express grave concerns with Trump’s widening attacks on law firms, judges and other institutions that have criticized his policies and power grabs.View image in fullscreen“Trump’s sanctions against Covington and Perkins serve two purposes. In the immediate term, he gets revenge against two firms that have offended him,” said NYU law professor Stephen Gillers.Gillers stressed that these orders also “warn other law firms that they face the same punishment if they cross Trump by representing plaintiffs challenging his executive orders. In fact, the executive orders should be called by their rightful name: vendettas.”Gillers added that the “only remaining institutional threat to Trump’s quest for total power is the judiciary … Lawyers are the gatekeepers for access to judicial power. We see a double-barreled strategy: attack the judges who criticize or rule against Trump as a warning to other judges, and attack law firms as a warning to other law firms that might take Trump to court.”The surge in Trump administration attacks on judges has been fueled by multiple court rulings that have delayed or scuttled Trump’s executive orders and Musk’s Doge operation to shrink the federal government with scant regard for congressional and judicial powers.For instance, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, last week wrote on X: “Under the precedents now being established by radical rogue judges, a district court in Hawaii could enjoin troop movements in Iraq. Judges have no authority to administer the executive branch. Or to nullify the results of a national election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJudges who have ruled against Trump have witnessed an uptick in threats. A bomb threat was even made in March against a sister of the conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett after she joined three liberal justices and Chief Justice Roberts in a ruling that went against Trump.Trump’s rightwing allies in Congress have jumped into the legal fray with calls to impeach certain judges who have ruled against the administration and some of Doge’s radical cost-cutting moves.After the New York district judge Paul Engelmayer blocked Doge on 8 February from gaining access to millions of sensitive and personal treasury records, Musk baselessly accused him of being a “corrupt judge protecting corruption” on X, the social media site he owns where he has about 200 million followers.“He needs to be impeached NOW!” Musk said on 9 February.With Musk nearby in the Oval Office last month, Trump echoed these attacks by the world’s richest man, who donated close to $300m to his campaign:“It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that,’ so maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that’s a very serious violation,” Trump said.To bolster those charges, Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican congressman, filed an impeachment resolution against the judge, whose ruling came after more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit arguing Doge could not legally access treasury records with personal details of millions of Americans.Former federal judges and scholars say that Trump and Musk have pushed the legal envelope in ways that are unprecedented in the US.“When you flood the zone with scores of executive orders, many of which were clearly based on questionable legal grounds, no one should be surprised that they’re not withstanding judicial scrutiny,” said John Jones, an ex-federal judge who is now president of Dickinson College.“An additional problem the administration has is that it’s losing credibility with the courts by continually making disingenuous arguments in support of these orders.”Other critics voice similar concerns.“Trump’s actions aimed at the role of lawyers and the courts appear to be part of a battle to reduce the judicial branch to being subordinate to the president,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at American University. “If Trump is able to punish lawyers who oppose him and ignore the courts, he will be only steps away from becoming the king he seems to want to be.”On another front where Trump is eager to snuff out criticism and dissent, the president escalated his attacks on the media in his recent justice department speech by asserting without evidence that some major reporting outlets are “illegal” and “corrupt”.“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative,” Trump said, lashing out at CNN and MSNBC as corrupt.Trump added in conspiratorial fashion: “It has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal.”Trump’s widening attacks on the press, the courts, law firms and other American institutions damage the rule of law in Raskin’s eyes.“Trump is attacking any source of potential institutional opposition,” Raskin said. “Anyone who offers any kind of resistance is a target of Trump’s. We’re seeing an explosion of Trump’s incorrigible lawlessness.” More

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      Trump’s defiance of court orders is ‘testing the fences’ of the rule of law

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      Donald Trump’s second administration has shown an “unprecedented degree of resistance” to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings.The attack came to a head this week when the Trump administration ignored an order from US district judge James Boasberg to turn planes carrying deportees around. “I don’t care what the judges think,” Thomas Homan, charged with enforcing Trump’s deportation agenda, said in a Fox News television interview on Monday as the decision came under scrutiny. The next day, Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, calling him a “radical left lunatic”.For months, the Trump administration has made it clear they believe they can ignore judicial orders. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” vice-president JD Vance tweeted on 9 February. Elon Musk, Trump’s top adviser, has repeatedly called for impeaching judges, and is donating to Republicans in Congress who have supported doing so. House Republicans have introduced resolutions to impeach Boasberg and four other judges who have ruled against Trump.Trump’s call for impeachment prompted a rare public rebuke from chief justice John Roberts, who said in a statement on Wednesday: “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 process exists for that purpose.”Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University who studies the federal courts, said there was no parallel situation in American history. Trump officials, he said, were trying to see what they could get away with in front of federal judges.“They’re testing the fences in ways in which they can claim plausible deniability when congressional Republicans say, you can’t defy the courts,” he said. “Whether you call it a crisis or not, this is certainly an unprecedented degree of resistance on the part of the executive branch to adverse court rulings.”J Michael Luttig, a well-respected former conservative federal judge, said on MSNBC on Tuesday that “America is in a constitutional crisis”. “The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America,” he said.Luttig told the Guardian that he believed the US supreme court’s ruling last summer finding Trump had immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undergirded his attacks on the courts. “It is the reason for his emboldenment,” he said.During Trump’s first administration, the federal courts played a major role in constraining administration policies that violated the US constitution and federal law. Of the 246 cases litigated involving efforts to implement policies through federal agencies, the Trump administration won 54 cases and lost 192 cases or withdrew the actions, according to the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University.Since Trump’s second term began in January, more than a dozen judges have blocked his executive actions, including efforts to mass fire federal workers, freeze federal funding and end birthright citizenship.During the first Trump administration, Vladeck noted, officials appeared more willing to “go back to the drawing board” to rework policies after they had been halted by the courts to make them comply with the law, he said.“You saw a lot more effort to rationalize everything the administration was doing in law, as opposed to in power,” he said.The attack on the judiciary has not just included impeachment, but also has extended to personal attacks on judges, prompting concerns about their safety. Supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett’s sister received a hoax bomb threat, the New York Times reported. Some of the attacks have included sending pizza orders to the homes of judges and family members as a way of threatening jurists that the public knows where they live.Another judge, John Coughenour of the western district court in Washington, told the Times he had been the victim of a “swatting” attempt in which law enforcement descended on his home after he blocked a Trump administration order ending birthright citizenship.Unlike politicians and public figures, judges are prohibited from speaking out on political matters and saying anything about a case that could give the impression they are biased. That leaves them unable to correct misinformation and respond to attacks against them.“It is difficult when you’re in a position where you can’t necessarily traditionally respond to what you think might be unfair and unwarranted attacks,” said Esther Salas, a federal district judge in New Jersey who has been outspoken about the need for protections for jurists after an unhappy litigant killed her son in 2020 and shot her husband at their home.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I will tell you that judges are human, just like everybody else. We have emotions, we have fears, we have concerns for our family members and for our own safety,” she said. “It does impact a judicial officer.”Judges have some tools at their disposal to force compliance with their orders. They can sanction attorneys, or if a party refuses to comply with a directive, a judge can issue civil or contempt orders. A civil contempt order, which could be something like a daily fine, punishes the non-compliant party until they adhere to a court ruling. Criminal contempt is more akin to a prosecution. In 2017, Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio after the former sheriff was found in criminal contempt of court.Federal courts also depend on US marshals, who are part of the justice department to enforce their rulings, prompting concerns Trump could interfere with their functioning.Indeed, Boasberg has already asked the Trump administration to “show cause” as to why the administration did not comply with his ruling to turn around the plane.But a motion of contempt and a finding of one often comes at the end of a long legal process and there can be long legal disputes about whether a party is actually complying with a court order.When a court blocked the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funds, for example, there was evidence the administration was not complying. The 22 states that sued filed a motion to enforce the court’s ruling, which they won, and were considering asking for a contempt order, but ultimately decided not to, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, one of the state attorneys general involved in the suit, said on Thursday.“We were considering a motion for contempt, but there was some explanations that they provided to us,” she said. They went ahead with the motion to enforce, which released the remaining funds, she told reporters at an event on Thursday.Vladeck speculated there were other actions courts could take if the Trump administration’s defiance reached a “break the glass moment”. The government, he said, relies on the federal courts for many things, including approving warrants and allowing criminal cases to proceed.“If noncompliance in case A led courts to be less likely to do the federal government’s bidding in case B, that’d be a real problem from the government’s perspective,” he said. The federal court in Washington , for example, could hypothetically dismiss all of the indictments the government brought out of hand. “That would be quite an escalation, but I think we’d be in response to quite a provocation.”But the larger point, Vladeck said, was that no one benefits from an unstable legal system in the United States. Economic markets depend on everyone being able to accept that the judgments of courts will be followed.“There’s no long-term political endgame that results from openly defying a judgment,” he said.Rachel Leingang contributed reporting More

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      Hegseth suggests judge who blocked trans troops ban abused her power

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      The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, joined the mounting criticism of federal judges by Donald Trump and others in his administration on Saturday, mocking the judge who blocked a ban on transgender troops in the US military and suggesting she had exceeded her authority.The US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington ruled that Trump’s 27 January executive order, one of several issued by the Republican president targeting legal rights for transgender Americans, likely violated the US constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.Hegseth in a post on social media mockingly called the judge “Commander Reyes” and suggested she was abusing her power by making decisions about warfare.“Since ‘Judge’ Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids,” Hegseth wrote. “After that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare.”Reyes was appointed by the Democratic former president Joe Biden. There have been rising tensions between Trump’s administration and members of the federal judiciary who have issued rulings impeding some of Trump’s actions since he returned to office in January, and rising concern about the safety of judges.Trump, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, the attorney general Pam Bondi and other administration officials have assailed judges in recent weeks. For instance, Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of the judge presiding over a legal challenge to deportation flights, calling him a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator” – prompting the US supreme court chief justice to issue a rare rebuke of the president.Federal courts are hearing more than 100 lawsuits challenging various initiatives by Trump and his administration, with some judges imposing nationwide injunctions to block policies, such as his move to curtail automatic birthright citizenship.Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox News television host, has made culture war issues such as banning transgender troops and abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the US military a top priority.After Hegseth took over the Pentagon, Trump also relieved the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, General CQ Brown, who is Black, and the Navy’s top admiral, who was the first woman to hold the position. Hegseth had previously questioned whether Brown only got the job because he was Black.While Trump and Hegseth have broad authority to relieve US military officers, their efforts to ban transgender service members have triggered numerous lawsuits.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe military said on 11 February it would no longer allow transgender individuals to join the military and would stop performing or facilitating medical procedures associated with gender transition for service members. Later that month, the military said it would begin expelling transgender members.Plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Reyes argued the order was illegal, pointing to a 2020 US supreme court ruling that found that employment discrimination against transgender people is a form of illegal sex discrimination.Lawyers for the administration have argued in court that the military is entitled to bar people with certain conditions that make them unsuitable for service, also including bipolar disorder and eating disorders. At a 12 March hearing, they told Reyes she should defer to the judgment of the current administration that transgender people are not fit for service. More

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      White House buoyed by submission of major law firm attacked by Trump

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      Inside the White House, advisers to Donald Trump reveled in their ability to bully Paul, Weiss – one of the largest law firms in the US – and see its chair criticize a former partner as he tried to appease the US president into rescinding an executive order that threatened the firm’s ability to function.Trump last week issued an executive order that suspended the firm’s lawyers from holding security clearances, terminated any of its federal government contracts and prevented its employees from entering federal government buildings on national security grounds.That executive order was withdrawn on Thursday after Trump decided he had scored major concessions and the Paul, Weiss chair, Brad Karp, expressed criticism of Mark Pomerantz, who had tried to build a criminal case against Trump in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.As part of the deal, the firm also committed to providing $40m in free legal services over the next four years to causes Trump has championed, and agreed to an audit of its employment procedures to wipe away any diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting initiatives.The most extraordinary part of the deal, widely seen as humiliating for Paul, Weiss, was that Trump had not made any explicit requests of the firm, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The commitments and most notably the sacrificing of Pomerantz were offered up proactively by Karp at a White House meeting this week, the people said.The deal marked a significant new chapter in Trump’s campaign of retribution against several top law firms he sees as having supported efforts to prosecute him during his time out of office – and how he has used the far-reaching power of the presidency to bring them to heel.It raises the prospect that Trump and his advisers, victorious over Paul, Weiss, will now feel emboldened to launch similar strikes against firms that tangle with the administration. After the executive order was withdrawn, some aides privately gloated that a precedent had been set.It also underscored how Trump has fractured the legal industry as it struggles to coalesce behind a singular strategy. Paul, Weiss opted to negotiate instead of following Perkins Coie, which was punished for once employing a lawyer connected to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.The deal with Paul, Weiss materialized in recent days over the course of several stunning moves that neither a major law firm of its ilk nor a president has perhaps ever countenanced, the people said.Trump’s executive order targeting Paul, Weiss took Washington by surprise, as it came two days after a federal judge in Washington ruled that the nearly identical order against Perkins Coie was likely unconstitutional and issued a temporary restraining order blocking it from taking effect.But Trump has been increasingly undeterred by adverse court rulings at the start of his second term, and announced he was punishing Paul, Weiss for its ties to Pomerantz and another lawyer who brought a lawsuit against January 6 Capitol rioters.The order was expansive and threatened to cause lasting damage to Paul, Weiss’s ability to operate. Its lawyers need security clearances to review sensitive contracts and documents at issue for its clients, and being denied entry to government buildings could include federal courthouses.Over the weekend, the leadership of Paul, Weiss convened meetings in which they discussed possible responses, including whether to strike a deal of concessions with Trump or to retain William Burck, the co-managing partner of the firm Quinn Emanuel, to represent them in a lawsuit against Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs Paul, Weiss prepared for the possibility of having to go to court, it also pursued a strategy to back-channel with Trump and his aides personally and offered a deal at the start of the week.Trump’s advisers knew they were in a position of relative strength over Paul, Weiss because the firm had already started to lose clients as a result of the executive order, the people said. Paul, Weiss disclosed in court filings this week that Steven Schwartz, the former chief legal officer of Cognizant Technologies, had fired the firm from a case.Karp went to the White House on Wednesday to deliver his proposal, which included condemning Pomerantz to Trump and a tight circle of advisers, including the chief of staff Susie Wiles, the envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s personal counsel Boris Epshteyn.During the roughly one-hour meeting, Trump also called Robert Giuffra of Sullivan and Cromwell, the head of one of Paul, Weiss’s direct competitors, to ask for his input. Ultimately, Trump agreed to the deal, but inserted what appears to have been a final surprise humiliation.The language that Karp had ostensibly agreed upon with the White House made no mention of Pomerantz and DEI, according to a person familiar with the matter. But when Trump announced the deal on social media, it included a statement from the White House that said Karp had “acknowledged the wrongdoing” of Pomerantz. More

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      Trump ramps up retribution campaign against legal community

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      Donald Trump expanded his retribution campaign against law firms on Friday night as he ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to refer what she determines to be partisan lawsuits to the White House and recommend punitive actions that could harm the firms involved.The directives were outlined in a sweeping memo in which Trump alleged that too many law firms were filing frivolous claims designed to cause delays. It came after a week of setbacks, in which a slew of judges issued temporary injunctions blocking the implementation of Trump’s agenda.Trump’s memo directed Bondi to seek sanctions against the firms or disciplinary actions against the lawyers. But imposing sanctions is up to federal judges, and perhaps in recognition of the uncertainty that his attorney general would prevail, Trump also ordered referrals to the White House.“When the attorney general determines that conduct by an attorney or law firm in litigation against the federal government warrants seeking sanctions or other disciplinary action, the attorney general shall … recommend to the president … additional steps that may be taken,” the memo said.The memo, as a result, created a formal mechanism for Trump to unilaterally decide whether to impose politically charged sanctions through executive orders that strip lawyers of the security clearances they need to perform their jobs or prevent them from working on federal contracts.Multiple legal experts suggested the memo would theoretically allow Bondi to decide a particular lawsuit that triggered a temporary injunction was causing an unnecessary delay, and refer the firm that filed the suit to face the effects of a punitive executive order.That could cause a chilling effect and lead to the volume of litigation against the Trump administration to decline, the experts said. Even if the lawsuits are in fact for a legitimate purpose, there’s fear that their representation could put them in the president’s cross hairs and endanger their legal practices.Trump also directed Bondi to open a review into the “conduct” of lawyers and their respective law firms in litigation against the federal government reaching back to the start of his first term in 2017 – and recommend whether it warranted additional punitive actions.The memo comes as Trump in recent weeks has used executive orders targeting law firms to great effect.Most recently, Trump stripped lawyers at the firm Paul Weiss of their security clearance and barred its employees from entering federal government buildings over his long-held complaint about a former partner, Mark Pomerantz, who tried to build a criminal case against him in New York.The executive order targeting Paul Weiss was nearly identical to an order that punished the firm Perkins Coie over its ties to a lawyer who once worked with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and another aimed at Covington and Burling, which represented the former special counsel Jack Smith.Paul Weiss had its order withdrawn on Thursday after its chair, Brad Karp, offered a series of concessions including offering up criticism of Pomerantz apparently to appease Trump. He committed to providing $40m worth of legal services to causes that Trump has championed.But Trump has stewed for days, according to people familiar with the matter, over a series of temporary restraining orders that have slowed the implementation of his political agenda and, in one instance, branded Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive as likely unconstitutional.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case that has aggravated Trump the most has been the challenge in a federal district court in Washington against his use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members without due process as he seeks to ramp up deportations.In that lawsuit, the US district judge James Boasberg ordered the administration to turn around any deportation flights that were in the air and temporarily barred any further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.The case has turned into a headache for the administration, after it failed to recall two flights on the basis that the judge did not replicate his verbal instruction in a written order, leading the judge to effectively open an inquiry into whether the White House had flouted a court order.“You felt that you could disregard it because it wasn’t in the written order. That’s your first argument? The idea that because my written order was pithier so it could be disregarded, that’s one heck of a stretch,” Boasberg said at a recent hearing.The administration has insisted it did not violate the order, but at the heart of the dispute is the administration’s belief that the judge lacked jurisdiction to hear the case in the first instance, ignoring the reality that federal courts can review whether statutes are properly invoked.Against that backdrop, as Trump has continued to rail against the injunction itself, the administration has adopted an increasingly combative stance towards Boasberg and said it was considering whether to invoke the rarely used state secrets privilege to stonewall the judge’s inquiry. More

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      Here’s what you need to know about your rights when entering the US

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      Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has carried out the hardline immigration policies he promised on the campaign trail.Trump’s administration sent migrants to the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba – with little access to legal counsel – and singled out two pro-Palestinian academics for deportation. The administration also failed to return El Salvador-destined deportation flights in potential violation of a court order.But in recent weeks, immigration authorities have also repeatedly detained US-bound tourists at the border, sparking public and diplomatic outrage abroad and fears among many people planning trips to the US, or living in the country on visas.Examples have made global headlines. A British woman said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained her for three weeks after a mixup at the US-Canada border. Canadian businesswoman and actor Jasmine Mooney said she was detained by Ice for two weeks. Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Germany, was held in immigration detention for six weeks before returning home.There’s suspicion that in some cases people were turned away over anti-Trump views. Among them is a French scientist who was denied entry after immigration officers at an airport found messages on his phone that were critical of Trump, France’s minister of higher education said.With serious concerns growing about whether visitors can safely travel to the US without fear of landing in immigration detention, here is a brief guide to international visitors’ rights.I have valid travel documents. Can customs officers stop and search me?Yes. US customs officers can stop people at entry points to assess whether they can come into the US. They are permitted to search travelers’ belongings for contraband, according to the ACLU of Pennsylvania.They can do this even if there’s nothing suspicious about you or your belongings. Customs agents are not allowed to search you or conduct another inspection “based on your religion, race, national origin, gender, ethnicity or political beliefs”.What about my mobile phone?The government asserts that their authority to search travelers without individualized suspicion also includes searches of electronic devices, including cellphones and laptops. That said, this assertion remains “a contested legal issue”, the ACLU said. Customs officers have at times asked travelers to give them their phone or laptop passwords when they going to or from the US.And if I refuse to unlock my devices?Citizens of the US can’t be denied entry if they refuse to provide passwords or unlock their devices. However, if they refuse, it could prompt a delay, still more questioning and customs officers taking their phone for further inspection.This should also be true for US lawful permanent residents who have been admitted to the US before and maintain their immigration status, as their green cards “can’t be revoked without a hearing before an immigration judge”. For visa holders and travelers from visa waiver countries, they are at risk of being denied entry if they refuse to unlock devices, the ACLU said.If my country is in the visa waiver program, can I enter?In general, the visa waiver program allows citizens of about four dozen countries to enter for up to 90 days without a visa for tourism or business. Citizens of the US, in turn, can travel up to 90 days in program countries.However, travelers from waiver program countries still need valid Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) approval before they come here for at least 72 hours prior to getting on a flight, the New York Times explains.The tricky part is that you can’t get an ESTA if you traveled to certain places after specified times, such as Cuba after 12 January 2021, the Times said. Without an ESTA, a tourist visa is necessary.I have an ESTA. Does that mean I can work?Visitors coming to the US with an ESTA are prohibited from studying or engaging in permanent work. ESTA visitors also give up many rights, such as the right to fight deportation – meaning that persons traveling with an ESTA could wind up facing “mandatory detention”, the Times said.Does a visa allow me to work?There are three types of visas for non-immigrant visitors to the US. There is a visitor visa allowing temporary entry for business purposes, a tourism visa, and a visa for business and travel.The three visas last as long as a decade but visitors with these visas can stay a maximum of six months in the US. Among other things, visitors with these visas are not allowed to do permanent work or study, or engage in paid performances, according to the New York Times.Even if your documents are in order, that doesn’t guarantee admission into the US. According to the Department of State, customs officials “have authority to permit or deny admission to the United States”.What happens if I’m detained?Civil rights advocates now suggest that visitors into the US, especially people who are not citizens, bring information to call an immigration lawyer or emergency contact if they encounter problems. “The stories are definitely concerning,” Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told the Washington Post.Zafar reportedly said that if travelers are detained, it’s advisable to comply with immigration officers’ directions – and get in touch with a lawyer immediately.So what rights do I actually have?Visitors to the US do have the right to remain silent. But choosing to do so at an entry point could jeopardize entry.If a customs agent asks a visitor with a tourist visa whether they were going to work during their stay, and that person doesn’t answer, then it could result in their being denied entry.If a visitor is not allowed to enter the US, they can “withdraw” their intent to do so and be permitted to return home. Typically their visa gets canceled and they fly back right away.An officer could deny this withdrawal, however, and detain the visitor. That is because these encounters technically take place outside the US and constitutional protections don’t hold. As a result, detainees in this situation don’t automatically have the right to an attorney.How does this work?“If you’re a foreign national, first understand you haven’t affected an entry despite being physically on US soil until you’re admitted properly,” said immigration attorney Michael Wildes, managing partner of Wildes and Weinberg and a professor at the Cardozo School of Law.“It’s a term of art when you’re admitted fully to the United States,” he said. When a person lands on US soil but is not technically admitted, “you might be considered to be what’s called an ‘arriving alien’.“You have greater rights as a criminal than as a foreign national coming with a visa.” More

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      Trump rescinds executive order after law firm agrees to provide $40m in free services

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      Donald Trump rescinded an executive order targeting a prominent Democratic-leaning law firm after it agreed to provide $40m in free legal services to support his administration’s goals.The White House has targeted law firms whose lawyers have provided legal work that Trump disagrees with. Last week, he issued an order threatening to suspend active security clearances of attorneys at Paul, Weiss and to terminate any federal contracts the firm has.But the president suddenly reversed course following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, over the White House order.Trump’s order singled out the work of Mark Pomerantz, who previously worked at the firm and who oversaw an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into Trump’s finances before Trump became president. Pomerantz once likened the president to a mob boss.To avoid the consequences of Trump’s order, the White House said, the firm had agreed to “take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society”. The firm reportedly agreed to disavow the use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in its hiring and promotion decisions and to dedicate the equivalent of $40m in free legal services to support Trump administration policies on issues including assistance for veterans and countering antisemitism.The firm, the White House claimed, also acknowledged the wrongdoing of Pomerantz, the partner involved in the investigation into Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film actor. It was unclear whether Karp was aware of that claim.In a statement issued by the White House, Karp said: “We are gratified that the President has agreed to withdraw the Executive Order concerning Paul, Weiss. We look forward to an engaged and constructive relationship with the President and his Administration.”The firm becomes the latest corporate target to make concessions to the president to avoid his ire.Meta and ABC made settlement payments to Trump’s future presidential library to end lawsuits filed by Trump. Other tech and financial firms have publicly rolled back DEI programs in line with Trump’s policy interests.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEarlier executive orders have targeted the law firms of Perkins Coie, which last week sued in federal court in Washington, and Covington & Burling. More

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      Judge demands answers from White House on deportation flights to El Salvador

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      A federal judge instructed the Trump administration on Thursday to explain why its failure to turn around flights carrying deportees to El Salvador did not violate his court order in a growing showdown between the judicial and executive branches.James Boasberg, the US district judge, demanded answers after flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants alleged by the Trump administration to be gang members landed in El Salvador after the judge temporarily blocked deportations conducted under an 18th-century wartime law. Boasberg had directed the administration to return planes that were already in the air to the US when he ordered the halt.Boasberg had given the administration until noon Thursday to either provide more details about the flights or make a claim that they must be withheld because they would harm “state secrets”. The administration resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition.In a written order, Boasberg called Trump officials’ latest response “woefully insufficient”. The judge said the administration “again evaded its obligations” by merely repeating “the same general information about the flights”. He ordered the administration to “show cause” as to why it didn’t follow his court order to turn around the planes, increasing the prospect that he may consider holding administration officials in contempt of court.The justice department has said the judge’s verbal directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed and that it couldn’t apply to flights that had already left the US. A DoJ spokesperson said Thursday that it “continues to believe that the court’s superfluous questioning of sensitive national security information is inappropriate judicial overreach”.A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told the judge Thursday the administration needed more time to decide whether it would invoke the state secrets privilege in an effort to block the information’s release.Boasberg then ordered Trump officials to submit a sworn declaration by Friday by a person “with direct involvement in the Cabinet-level discussions” about the state secrets privilege and to tell the court by next Tuesday whether the administration will invoke it.In a deepening conflict between the judicial and executive branches, the US president and many of his allies have called for impeaching Boasberg, who was nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama. In a rare statement earlier this week, John Roberts, the supreme court chief justice, rejected such calls, saying “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump on Thursday urged the supreme court to limit federal judges’ ability to issue orders blocking the actions of his administration nationwide, writing on social media: “STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” More