Law (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Will Donald Trump defy the US supreme court? | Steven Greenhouse

      by

      With the most authoritarian and lawless president in history sitting in the White House, the US supreme court is no doubt worried about looking weak in one of two ways. First, the court fears it will look pathetically weak if it becomes the first supreme court in history to have a president defy its rulings in a wholesale way. With that in mind, the court seems to be taking pains to avoid provoking Donald Trump’s defiance – it has issued several decisions upholding the president’s actions while in other cases, it has given him lots of wiggle room even as it objected to his administration’s moves.Then there’s the court’s second, big worry – that it will look pathetically weak if it doesn’t stand up to the most authoritarian president in US history. Many legal experts criticize the court for not standing up more to Trump, even though he has brazenly attacked the court and many lower-court judges, has defied several judicial orders and has, according to numerous judges, repeatedly violated the law – whether by deporting immigrants without due process or by freezing funds approved by Congress.The court’s six conservative justices have let themselves seem like Trump’s chumps because they’ve often bowed to him instead of standing up and ruling against him. The foremost example is last year’s supreme court ruling giving Trump astonishingly broad immunity from criminal prosecution.The image-conscious chief justice, John Roberts, and his court have to decide which of two paths to take. One path – which the court’s conservative supermajority seems to be following – is to issue pro-Trump rulings to avoid inciting his ire and defiance. That approach might spare the court the Maga movement’s anger, but historians will look dimly on the court for bending in Trump’s favor – they’ll accuse it of complicity and sacrificing principle for not blocking Trump moves that, many legal experts, conservative, centrist and progressive, say, violate federal law and the constitution.The court can choose a more courageous path: stick to principle and not shrink from ruling against Trump. That might spur the bull-headed president to defy the court, but under that scenario, historians would praise the justices for upholding the law and the court’s constitutional role and for not letting themselves become stooges for a power-hungry president.The Roberts court has given us some hope, but not much. In a surprise ruling at 1am one April night, it seemed to develop a few inches of backbone by ordering the Trump administration not to deport several dozen Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador without first giving them due process.That was a promising ruling, but on the other side of the ledger, the court has often bowed to Trump, for instance, by overturning a lower court ruling and letting Trump fire 16,000 probationary federal employees and by letting his administration suspend $65m in teacher-training grants. Moreover, the rightwing supermajority did Trump a big favor by letting him provisionally remove the heads of two independent agencies, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protections Board. That hurried ruling, made without full briefing or arguments, indicated that the court’s conservatives are eager to overturn a unanimous, 90-year-old supreme court decision that limits presidents’ ability to fire officials at independent agencies. In this way, the Roberts court is giving more power to our dangerously authoritarian president.Let’s not forget how weak the court has looked for failing to act firmly to assure the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, an immigrant from El Salvador who even Trump administration officials acknowledged was deported illegally. On 10 April, the court issued a wimpy decision that called on the Trump administration to “facilitate” Ábrego Garcia’s return – it stopped short of using the district court’s more muscular language to “effectuate” his return. More than six weeks have passed since the high court called on Trump to bring back Ábrego García, but Trump hasn’t done so. His administration has sidestepped outright defiance by pretending that it is seeking to facilitate Ábrego García’s return.Not only that, Trump has smeared the justices by saying: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” Trump has also savaged several federal district court judges, calling one a “radical left lunatic” and denouncing others as “MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL”.With their hard-right ideology, the court’s supermajority evidently sympathizes with many of Trump’s moves and has blessed such moves far more often than many legal scholars would like. In doing so, the court has emboldened Trump to take even more actions that push – and often overstep – the boundaries of what is legal. In a worrisome development, the court has, at least thus far, shown surprisingly little concern about Trump’s defiance of district court judges’ orders and his authoritarian effort to assert his dominance over the two, other theoretically co-equal branches of government: the judiciary and Congress.For its own good and for the nation’s good, the supreme court needs to step up and do its utmost to stop Trump’s lawlessness and his unprecedented efforts to defy district court rulings and lash out against the judiciary. Trump has called for impeaching judges who ruled against him, and as his tirades against judges have increased, the number of judges who have received threats has soared.The court needs to issue some strong, clarion decisions that make clear to the nation that Trump has shown repeated contempt for the constitution, the rule of law and the judiciary. The justices should move quickly to issue an outrage-filled ruling that finds that Trump violated law firms’ free speech rights by punishing several firms for taking cases he didn’t like or employing lawyers he didn’t like. The justices should also move swiftly to issue a strong ruling in favor of Harvard University and against Trump’s vindictive assault – an assault that violated Harvard’s first amendment rights by seeking to suppress speech and ideas that Trump doesn’t like and by trying to dictate much of Harvard’s hiring, curriculum and admissions policies.The court should also issue a forceful ruling that demolishes Trump’s arguments that he can invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members en masse without due process. The court should trumpet the absurdity of Trump’s claim that Venezuelan immigrants constitute an invasion force the way, for instance, British troops constituted an invasion force during the war of 1812.The court should also shoot down Trump’s efforts to gut federal agencies and freeze funding by making it emphatically clear that those efforts violate Congress’s article I spending power. The conservative supermajority should also rethink its intention to overturn the 1935 ruling that limits presidents’ ability to fire members of independent agencies. That ruling sought to ensure that those agencies didn’t become partisan puppets that do whatever a president wants – something that no one should want when the nation has such a vengeful and capricious president.With the Roberts court slated to issue a flood of rulings by early July, the justices have an important choice: to bend to Trump or to grow a real backbone. Does the Roberts court want to be remembered as cowardly enablers who helped the most authoritarian and lawless president in history consolidate power? Or do the justices want to be remembered as determined defenders who stood up to an authoritarian bully to protect our laws, our constitution and our democracy?

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge strikes down Trump order that targeted US law firm WilmerHale

      by

      Donald Trump’s campaign against the legal profession hit another setback on Tuesday as a federal judge struck down yet another executive order that sought to place sanctions on one of the country’s most prestigious law firms.The order in favor of WilmerHale marks the third time this month that a federal judge in Washington has deemed the US president’s series of law firm executive orders to be unconstitutional and has permanently barred their enforcement.“The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting. The Founding Fathers knew this!” wrote US district judge Richard Leon.To permit the order to stand, Leon wrote, “would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers”.The firm applauded the ruling from Leon, an appointee of former Republican president George HW Bush.“The court’s decision to permanently block the unlawful executive order in its entirety strongly affirms our foundational constitutional rights and those of our clients. We remain proud to defend our firm, our people, and our clients,” a spokesperson for the firm said.The ruling was similar to one from Friday by a different judge that rejected a Trump edict against the firm of Jenner & Block and another one from earlier in the month in favor of the firm Perkins Coie.The firms had all been subjected to Trump executive orders that sought to impose the same set of consequences, including suspending security clearances of attorneys and barring employees from federal buildings.The orders have been part of a broader effort by Trump to reshape US civil society by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will.Several of the firms singled out for sanctions have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated him.The order against WilmerHale, for instance, cited the fact that the firm previously employed former justice department special counsel Robert Mueller, who led an investigation during Trump’s first term into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.Other major firms have sought to avert orders by preemptively reaching settlements that require them, among other things, to collectively dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services in support of causes the Trump administration says it supports. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US federal judges consider creating own armed security force as threats mount

      by

      Federal judges are discussing a proposal that would shift the armed security personnel responsible for their safety away from the Department of Justice (DoJ) and under their own control, as fears mount that the Trump administration is failing to protect them from a rising tide of hostility.The Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday that the idea of creating their own armed security detail emerged at a meeting of about 50 federal judges two months ago. A security committee at the twice-yearly judicial conference, a policymaking body for federal judges, raised concerns about the increasing number of threats against judges following Trump’s relentless criticism of court rulings against his policies.Under the current system, federal judges are protected by the US marshals service, which is managed by the justice department. According to Wall Street Journal, those participating at the March conference expressed worries that Trump might instruct the marshals to withdraw security protection from a judge who ruled against him.Amid those anxieties, the idea surfaced that federal judges should form their own armed security force. That would involve bringing the US marshals service under the direct control of the head of the judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts.At present, marshals fall under the remit of Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. Bondi was appointed by the president and is a Trump loyalist.She has made clear she will be guided by him – breaking a decades-long norm that kept the White House at arm’s length from the DoJ to ensure law enforcement and prosecutorial independence.John Coughenour, a federal judge in the western district of Washington, told the Journal that he thought the transfer of the marshals out of Trump’s and into judicial control was a “wonderful idea”. He added: “There’s never been any reason in the 43 years that I’ve been on the bench to worry that the marshals service would do whatever was appropriate – until recent years.”Coughenour is one of a growing number of judges who have faced security threats in the wake of Trump’s deluge of invective. In February the judge issued an order blocking Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for children born on US soil to parents lacking legal status in the country.The judge was then targeted by a swatting attack, where a fake alarm is called into police and a Swat team sent out to the individual’s home.Senior Democrats have demanded an investigation into a spate of dozens of pizza deliveries to the homes of federal judges. The actions are seen as intimidatory, as it shows judges that their private addresses are known.Federal judges have found themselves on the front lines of constitutional battles over Trump’s executive orders over such contentious issues as birthright citizenship, the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and the dismissal of tens of thousands of federal employees. So far there have been 249 legal challenges to Trump administration actions, according to a Just Security tracker.Trump has used his social media platform Truth Social to lash out at named judges who have blocked his policies on grounds that they violate the US constitution or law. When Judge James Boasberg objected to the deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador in the absence of due process, the president called him a “radical left lunatic” and said he should be impeached. Boasberg was first appointed to the federal bench by Republican George W Bush.The White House provided the Journal with a statement from the justice department. It said that marshals would “continue to protect the safety and security of federal judges” and that any other suggestion was “absurd”. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US judge overturns Trump order targeting major law firm Jenner & Block

      by

      A US judge on Friday overturned Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.US district judge John D Bates ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Bates did not mince words when calling a Trump executive order unconstitutional, which sought to target Jenner & Block.Trump’s order, Bates wrote, “makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed”.“Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the constitution,” Bates said.The justice department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The administration can appeal Bates’ order to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit.Trump signed an executive order in March, targeting Jenner & Block by suspending security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work. This was, Trump claimed, because of politically motivated “lawfare” the firm engaged in.By attempting to push forward this executive order, Trump attempted to “chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the executive branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers”.Bates added that the Trump executive orders against law firms “follow the same recipe: other than personalized touches in their first sections, they generally direct the same adverse actions towards each firm and decry the threat each firm poses to national security and the national interest”.Bates was appointed to the District of Columbia in 2001 by George W Bush. He blocked Trump’s executive order completely.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.Nine law firms, including Paul Weiss, Milbank, Simpson Thacher and Skadden Arps, have pledged nearly $1bn in free legal services to causes the White House supports and made other concessions to avoid being targeted by Trump.The justice department has defended Trump’s executive orders against Jenner and other law firms as consistent with the broad reach of presidential authority.Reuters contributed reporting More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      What is temporary protected status and who is affected by Trump’s crackdown?

      by

      Millions of people live legally in the United States under various forms of temporary legal protection. Many have been targeted in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.The latest move has been against people who have what’s known as “temporary protected status” (TPS), which grants people the right to stay in the US legally due to extraordinary circumstances in one’s home country such as war or environmental catastrophe.The Trump administration has in recent weeks announced its plan to end TPS for Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans and Cameroonians. The move may force more than 9,000 Afghan refugees to move back to the country now ruled by the Taliban. The administration also is ending the designation for roughly half a million Haitians in August.Here’s what to know about TPS and some other temporary protections for immigrants:What is temporary protected status?Temporary protected status allows people already living in the United States to stay and work legally for up to 18 months if their homelands are unsafe because of civil unrest or natural disasters.The Biden administration dramatically expanded the designation. It covers people from more than a dozen countries, though the largest numbers come from Venezuela and Haiti.The status does not put immigrants on a long-term path to citizenship and can be repeatedly renewed. Critics say renewal has become effectively automatic for many immigrants, no matter what is happening in their home countries. According to the American Immigration Council, ending TPS designations would lead to a significant economic loss for the US. The non-profit found that TPS households in the country earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021, and paid nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes.What is the latest supreme court ruling on Venezuelans?On Monday, the supreme court allowed the administration to end protections that had allowed some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants to remain in the United States.Many Venezuelans were first granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration, allowing those who were already in the US to apply for protection from deportation and gain work authorization. Then, in 2023, the Biden administration issued an additional TPS designation for Venezuelans, and in January – just before Trump took office – extended those protections through October 2026.The Trump administration officials had ordered TPS to expire for those Venezuelans in April. The supreme court’s decision lifted a federal judge’s ruling that had paused the administration’s plans, meaning TPS holders are now at risk of losing their protections and could face deportation.What other forms of legal protection are under attack?More than 500,000 people from what are sometimes called the CHNV countries – Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – live in the US under the legal tool known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to enter the US temporarily, on the basis that they have an urgent humanitarian need like a medical emergency. This category, however, is also under threat by the Trump administration.In late March, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate humanitarian parole for approximately 530,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians. In April, a federal judge issued a temporary order barring the elimination of the humanitarian parole program.But last week, the administration took the issue to the supreme court, asking it to allow it to end parole for immigrants from those four countries. The emergency appeal said a lower-court order had wrongly encroached on the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.US administrations – both Republican and Democratic – have used parole for decades for people unable to use regular immigration channels, whether because of time pressure or bad relations between their country and the US.The case now returns to the lower courts. For the California-based federal court, the next hearing is on 29 May. For the Massachusetts case, no hearings are scheduled and attorneys are working on a briefing for the motion to dismiss filed by the government, according to WGBH, a member station of National Public Radio in Massachusetts. The appeals court hearing will be the week of 11 July. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      California school district must halt ban on critical race theory, court rules

      by

      A small southern California school district must immediately pause its ban on critical race theory (CRT), a California appeals court ruled on Thursday morning .The 4th district court of appeals ruling put a halt to the Temecula Valley unified school district ban until its litigation is settled in the California legal system. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle over the CRT ban, which was first adopted as a resolution by the Temecula Valley Board of Education in December 2022 as they attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.The recent decision, authored by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, and concurred by the panel’s other two judges, said that the vague nature and lack of legal or academic terminology in the resolution jeopardized its constitutionality.“The Resolution defined CRT as ‘a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race’ and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology,” O’Leary’s ruling said. “The Resolution operates as if this definition is universally accepted, but the text does not indicate where this definition is derived, or whether it is shared with anyone else besides the Board.”The ruling pointed to the resolution’s lack of examples of CRT, and lack of guidance for teachers looking to modify their curriculum.O’Leary’s other primary concern revolved around “confusion and fear” from educators due to the policy, and negative impacts on education provided. One fourth grade teacher submitted a letter of evidence stating that under the doctrine, “she did not know what a permissible response was when her students asked her how and why slavery happened.”“Teachers are left to self-censor and potentially overcorrect, depriving the students of a fully informed education and further exacerbating the teachers’ discomfort in the classroom,” O’Leary wrote. “Rather than lead the classroom and moderate healthy discussion, the teachers are forced to leave children’s questions unanswered.”The conflict over CRT in education has been divisive in Temecula, a historically conservative southern California city of just more than 100,000 people. The battle has followed familiar lines, with three conservative school board members elected in 2022 after running in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, as well as “sexualized” material in school curriculums. The school board president also famously labeled Milk as a “pedophile” and originally rejected a state-issued social studies textbook including the assassinated gay rights activist. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, threatened a $1.5m fine in response.While the school district may have run into opposition in their community and at the appeals court, headwinds at the federal level are in their favor. In late January, Donald Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump officials deported Vietnamese and Burmese migrants to South Sudan, say lawyers

      by

      Immigrant rights advocates have accused the Trump administration of deporting about a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and asked a judge to order their return.The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.Lawyers for a group of migrants pursuing the class action lawsuit before US district judge Brian Murphy said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.Those migrants included an individual from Myanmar whose lawyer received an email on Monday from an official with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing the attorney of the intent to deport his client to South Sudan.The migrant’s lawyers said they learned their client had been flown to South Sudan on Tuesday morning.The spouse of a Vietnamese man who was held at the same detention center in Texas emailed his lawyer, meanwhile, saying he and 10 other individuals were deported as well, according to the motion.The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSouth Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and has since struggled with armed conflict and poverty. Between 2013 and 2018, fighting between factions loyal to the current president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and his vice-president, Riek Machar, killed nearly 400,000 people. More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver charged with assault after clash at detention center

      by

      US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.Alina Habba, interim US attorney, said in a post on social media that McIver was facing charges “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” when she visited the detention center along with two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation on 9 May.“No one is above the law – politicians or otherwise,” Habba said in a statement. “It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work.”McIver on Monday accused federal law enforcement of escalating the situation, saying that it was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who “created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”.“The charges against me are purely political – they mischaracterise and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalise and deter legislative oversight,” she said.At the same time, Habba announced her office was dismissing a misdemeanor trespassing charge against Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, whose arrest instigated the clash with federal agents.Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, was arrested and charged with trespassing as he sought to join the congressional delegation at Delaney Hall, a privately run federal immigration detention center.Habba, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer before being named to the post, said she had dismissed the charge “for the sake of moving forward” and offered to personally accompany Baraka on a tour of the facility, declaring the government has “nothing to hide”.View image in fullscreenKristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X that McIver was being charged after a “thorough review of the video footage and an investigation”.Body camera footage released by the agency and shared with Fox News shows a chaotic scene outside the facility’s chain-link fence as the mayor is arrested. During the scuffle, McIver walks through the gate and appears to make contact with a law enforcement officer wearing fatigues and a face covering. It is unclear if the contact is intentional, accidental or the result of being caught in the scrum.Meanwhile, footage from witnesses on the scene appears to contradict the government’s claim that members of Congress stormed the facility.Paul Fishman, an attorney for McIver called the decision to charge the congresswoman “spectacularly inappropriate”, arguing she had the “right and responsibility to see how Ice is treating detainees”.“Rather than facilitating that inspection, Ice agents chose to escalate what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos,” Fishman, the former US attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement.Democrats and legal advocates reacted with alarm on Monday, casting the prosecution of the congresswoman as an attempt to deter legislative oversight and stifle opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which have included raids and deportations without due process.In a joint statement, House Democratic leaders on Monday condemned the charges as “extreme, morally bankrupt and [lacking] any basis in law or fact”.“There is no credible evidence that Rep McIver engaged in any criminal activity,” the Democrats said, noting that after the incident, Trump administration officials led the members of Congress on a tour of the facility, which they said would not have been permitted “had she done anything wrong”.In a statement on Monday, Bakara welcomed the dismissal of charges against him, but said he would “continue to advocate for the humane treatment of detainees” and “continue to press the facility to ensure that it is compliant with City of Newark codes and regulations”. He also made clear that he stood with McIver, whom he called a “daughter of Newark”. “I fully expect her to be vindicated,” he said.Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, and Amol Sinha, executive director of ACLU-NJ, warned that the charges against a sitting member of Congress were “more suited for authoritarianism than American democracy”.“If the Trump administration can target elected officials who oppose its extreme agenda, it can happen to any one of us,” they wrote. “We demand that they drop the charges against Rep McIver, and we implore her fellow members of Congress to call for the same.” More