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      ‘I am a political prisoner’: Mahmoud Khalil says he’s being targeted for political beliefs

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      In his first public remarks since being detained by federal immigration authorities, Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, spoke out against the conditions facing immigrants in US detention and said he was being targeted by the Trump administration for his political beliefs.“I am a political prisoner,” he said in a statement provided exclusively to the Guardian. “I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.”Khalil, a permanent US resident who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring, was arrested and detained in New York on 8 March by federal immigration authorities who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.The Trump administration, he said, “is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent” warning that “visa-holders, green-card carriers and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”The statement, which Khalil dictated to his friends and family over the phone from an Ice detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, railed against the US’s treatment of immigrants in its custody, Israel’s renewed bombardment of the Gaza Strip, US foreign policy, and what he described as Columbia University’s surrender to federal pressure to punish students.“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night,” the statement said. “With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”Khalil described his arrest at his university-owned apartment building in New York in front of his wife, Noor Abdalla, who is eight months pregnant with their first child. The agents who arrested him “refused to provide a warrant” before forcing him into an unmarked car, he said.“At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety,” he said. “I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side.”He was then transferred to an Ice facility in New Jersey before being flown 1,400 miles away to the Louisiana detention facility, where he is currently being held. He spent his first night in detention, he said, sleeping on the floor without a blanket.In his remarks, Khalil said that in Louisiana, he wakes to “cold mornings” and spends “long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law”.“Who has the right to have rights?” Khalil asked. “It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.”“Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities,” he added.Khalil drew comparison between his current treatment in the US and the ways in which he said the Israeli government uses detention without trial to lock up Palestinians.“I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba,” he added, referring to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 after the creation of Israel.“I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention – imprisonment without trial or charge – to strip Palestinians of their rights,” he said.“I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.”Khalil’s arrest ignited protests and caused alarm among free expression advocates, who view the deportation attempt as a violation of his free speech rights. Khalil has not been accused of a crime. His lawyers argue that the Trump administration is unlawfully retaliating against him for his activism and constitutionally protected speech. In an amended petition filed last week, they contended that his detention violates his constitutional rights, including the rights to free speech and due process, and goes beyond the government’s legal authority.His attorneys are currently fighting in a New York court to have him transferred back to New York and to secure his release. A federal judge has blocked Khalil’s deportation while the legal challenge is pending.Throughout Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and since assuming office, Trump has repeatedly pledged to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, frequently framing such demonstrations as expressions of support for Hamas.Khalil, who has worked for the British embassy in Beirut, served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last year, mediating between the pro-Palestine protesters and university administrators.The Trump administration has accused the former student of leading “activities aligned to Hamas” and was attempting to deport him using a rarely invoked legal provision from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the US secretary of state the power to remove someone from the US if their presence in the country is deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.Federal prosecutors are asking the New York court to order his challenge to his detention moved to Louisiana, where it would likely face more conservative judges.Diala Shamas, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and member of Khalil’s legal team, said that what happens to Khalil will reverberate beyond his case. “The Trump administration has clearly signaled that this is their test case, their opening shot, the first of many more to come,” she said.“And for that test case, they chose an intrepid and deeply principled organizer who is beloved and trusted in his community,” Shamas said.After Khalil’s arrest, Trump said that it was just “the first of many to come” and vowed on social media to deport other foreign students he accused of engaging in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”.Khalil said in his statement that he has always believed that his duty “is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear”.“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention” he said. “For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities.”He added: “That is precisely why I am being targeted.”Khalil also criticized Columbia University, arguing that university leaders “laid the groundwork for the US government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns – based on racism and disinformation – to go unchecked.”The university has increasingly taken disciplinary actions against students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is stepping up its attacks on the school under the guise of fighting antisemitism, which it claims run rampant at the university. The administration is using the same argument to threaten dozens of others American universities with potentially crippling funding cuts.Students, Khalil said, have an important role to play in fighting back. “Students have long been at the forefront of change – leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa,” he said.“In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”He concluded: “Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”

      Read Khalil’s full statement here. More

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      Semisonic denounces White House use of ‘Closing Time’ in deportation video

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      The band Semisonic has said the Donald Trump White House “missed the point” of its hit Closing Time “entirely” when the administration used the Emmy-nominated song in a social media post showing a shackled person being deported.A statement from Semisonic also said the White House did not have permission to use the song in that manner.The White House’s post included a video of a man handcuffed at the waist while being patted down at an airport, captioned with the song’s signature lyrics: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”“We did not authorize or condone the White House’s use of our song ‘Closing Time’ in any way,” the band, which formed in Minneapolis, said in its own Facebook post after the video was circulated widely. “And no, they didn’t ask. The song is about joy and possibilities and hope, and they have missed the point entirely.”The US Customs and Border Protection agency retweeted the White House’s post with the caption: “It’s closing time. We are making America safe again.”The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Monday that “our entire government clearly is leaning into the message of this president” when asked about the song.Closing Time appeared on Semisonic’s 1998 album Feeling Strangely Fine, which peaked at No 43 on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy nomination for best rock song.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSemisonic joins a growing list of artists objecting to Trump’s unauthorized use of their music, including Abba, Bruce Springsteen, Rihanna, Phil Collins, Pharrell, John Fogerty, Neil Young, Panic! at the Disco, REM, Guns N’ Roses, Céline Dion and Adele.In 2024, Dion’s management and Sony Music Canada rebuked the unauthorized use of My Heart Will Go On at a Trump campaign rally in Montana. A statement – alluding to the hit’s presence on the soundtrack of the 1997 film Titanic and published on her social media – read: “In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use.… And really, THAT song?”Rihanna had a similar response in 2018 when Don’t Stop the Music played at a Trump rally. She said that her music should not be used for political purposes.Artists including Steven Tyler and Neil Young have sent cease-and-desist letters demanding their songs not be used at campaign events. In May 2023, Village People also sent a cease-and-desist letter and threatened legal action after Trump used their song Macho Man and other hit songs without their permission. More

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      Chief justice rebukes Trump for call to impeach judge hearing deportation case

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      John Roberts, the chief justice of the US supreme court, delivered a rare rebuke on Tuesday of Donald Trump after the US president demanded the impeachment of a federal judge who had issued an adverse ruling against the administration blocking the deportation of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members.“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement. “The normal appellate process exists for that purpose.”The statement came hours after Trump assailed the chief US district judge in Washington DC, James Boasberg, for issuing a temporary restraining order halting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 that gives the president the power to conduct removals without due process.“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote about Boasberg, labelling him a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge” and a “troublemaker”.View image in fullscreenTrump’s personal attack against Boasberg reflected his broader resentment at being increasingly constrained in recent weeks by court orders he believes are wrong, and his frustration at having his signature deportation policy be halted while subject to legal scrutiny.It also followed the administration’s attempt to have Boasberg thrown off the case, complaining in a letter to the clerk of the US court of appeals for the DC circuit – a bizarre way to force a recusal – on grounds that he had overreached by improperly turning the matter into a class-action lawsuit.According to the statute, the Alien Enemies Act can be invoked in the event of war, which only Congress can declare under the US constitution, or in the event of “predatory incursions” by state actors that amount to an invasion.The Trump administration’s use of the law rests on the second clause concerning incursions. In court filings, the administration has said Trump determined that the US was being invaded by members of the Tren de Aragua gang in Venezuela, which acted as a proxy for the Venezuelan government.Trump has the power as president to declare an incursion under the Alien Enemies Act, the filing said, and his decision was unreviewable by the courts following the US supreme court’s 1948 decision in Ludecke v Watkins, which said that whether someone was an enemy alien was up to the president.But Trump and his political allies appeared to have conflated two issues; federal courts can still review whether Trump satisfied the conditions to declare an incursion under the Alien Enemies Act in the first instance.The problem for the Trump administration is that in deciding Boasberg’s injunction blocking the deportation flights was unlawful, they ignored a verbal order from the judge at an emergency hearing on Saturday to turn around any deportation flights that had already departed.That opened a second legal battle for the administration where the justice department was left to argue at a hearing on Monday that the orders had been unclear and that, in any event, Boasberg’s authority to compel the planes to return vanished the moment they left US airspace.The extraordinary defenses by the administration suggested the White House took advantage of its own perceived uncertainty to do as it pleased, testing the limits of the judicial system to hold to account government officials set on circumventing adverse rulings.At the hearing, the administration claimed it did not follow Boasberg’s verbal instruction to turn around planes that had already departed, because it had not been repeated in the written injunction he issued at 7.25pm ET on Saturday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Oral statements are not injunctions and the written orders always supersede whatever may have been stated in the record,” Abhishek Kambli, the deputy assistant attorney general for the justice department’s civil division, argued for the administration.The judge appeared unimpressed by that contention. “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.Kambli also suggested that even if Boasberg had included the directive in his written injunction, by the time he issued the temporary restraining order the deportation flights had been outside the judge’s jurisdiction.Boasberg expressed incredulity at that argument, too, explaining that federal judges still have authority over US government officials who make the decisions about the planes and that he had had the authority to order their return, even if the planes had been outside US airspace.The Trump administration opened a third legal front in the Alien Enemies Act case, after it asked Boasberg in a late-night 35-page filing on Monday to dissolve the injunctions and dismiss the case.The administration is currently subject to two injunctions: one order preventing the deportation of five Venezuelans who filed the initial suit challenging the use of the Alien Enemies Act, and a second order from Boasberg that expanded the initial order to cover anyone being removed under the Alien Enemies Act.Administration lawyers affirmed in a separate filing on Tuesday that no deportation flights had departed the US after Boasberg’s written injunction had been issued on Saturday evening. Two flights took off before his 7.25pm ET order. One flight took off after, but that plane carried immigrants who were being deported under a different authority from the Alien Enemies Act. More

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      The case for boycotting the United States | Robert Reich

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      To friends of democracy around the world: we need your help.You know that the Trump regime is brutally attacking US democracy. Most of us did not vote for Donald Trump (half of us didn’t even vote in the 2024 election). But he feels he has a mandate to take a wrecking ball to the constitution.Like most bullies, the regime can be constrained only if everyone stands up to the bullying – including you.First, if you are considering a trip to the United States, please reconsider. Why reward Trump’s America with your tourist dollars?Spending by non-Americans in the United States is a significant source of tax revenue and a major “export” of this nation. There’s no reason for you to indirectly support Trump’s economy.Many international travelers concerned about Trump’s authoritarianism have already canceled trips to the United States. You might do so, too.Last week, the US president threatened a 200% tariff on European wine and alcohol after calling the European Union “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World”.Why reward this bellicose rhetoric? Many Europeans are already skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals.Travel from China, a frequent target of Trump’s contempt, is down 11%. Chinese travelers are choosing to vacation in Australia and New Zealand instead of visiting US national parks.Our dear neighbors north of the border, who have long been the major source of international travel to the United States, are deciding to visit Europe and Mexico instead.In response to Trump’s repeated desire to make Canada a “51st state”, Canada’s former prime minister Justin Trudeau has urged Canadians not to vacation in the US.An informal boycott by Canadian travelers has begun. The number of Canadians returning by car from visits to the United States already fell by 23% in February, and air travel by Canadians returning from the United States was down 13% relative to last year, according to Statistics Canada.Overall, it’s expected that international travel to the United States will drop at least 5% this year.Although we have loved (and profited from) your visits, I urge you to join many of your compatriots and at least for now decide not to come to the United States.Second, if you are thinking about coming to the United States on a student or even on an H-1B visa, which allows highly skilled foreign citizens to live and work here, you might also reconsider.Perhaps wait a few years until, hopefully, the Trump regime has ended.It is not entirely safe for you to be here, in any event.Dr Rasha Alawieh, 34, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school, who has been in the United States legally on an H-1B visa, was just deported without explanation, and even though a court order had blocked her expulsion.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDr Alawieh had traveled last month to Lebanon, her home country, to visit relatives. When she tried to return from that trip to the United States, she was detained by US customs and immigration officials and put on a flight to Paris, presumably on her way to Lebanon.Lebanon is not even on a draft list of nations from which the Trump administration is considering banning entry to the United States.Even if there’s a shortage in the US of skilled workers in your specialty, you could be deported at any time, for any or no reason.Likewise, if you are considering coming to the US on a student visa, you might consider the risk at this time. A Columbia University graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested and detained for no reason other than that he peacefully protested against Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza.The administration of Brown University has advised foreign students, ahead of spring break, to “consider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the US Department of State”.It is not just the risk. It’s also the circumstances. If you care about democracy, this is not the time to come here on a student or H-1B visa because the Trump regime is riding roughshod over our rights.On Sunday, it deported hundreds of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to a prison in El Salvador. This was done even though a federal judge blocked Trump’s use of the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act – which had only been used in times of war – and ordered planes carrying some of the Venezuelans to turn back to the United States.On Sunday night, Trump told reporters that the Venezuelans he deported were “bad people”.But no one can take Trump’s word that these were “bad” people. Trump routinely uses the term “bad people” to refer to people who oppose or criticize him.Whatever your reason for wanting to come to the United States – as a visitor, a student, or an H-1B skilled worker – you might want to reconsider your plans.Deciding not to come would send a signal that you’re justifiably worried about your safety and security here and you are as repulsed by the Trump regime’s attacks on democracy as are most of us Americans.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Fear grows among US’s 390,000 undocumented Chinese immigrants: ‘So many policies have changed’

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      In 2014, a few years after the birth of her second child, Jenny left China to flee an abusive relationship and government persecution for violating the one-child policy. She brought her younger daughter to San Francisco and, though undocumented, found work at a childcare facility and eventually married a US citizen.Because of extended delays in visa processing, her green card application remains in limbo after three years, but she’s never been particularly afraid of her immigration status. That is until Donald Trump won re-election last November, fueled in part by a promise to conduct the largest mass deportation program in US history.Jenny – the Guardian is using an alias to protect her identity – said she had been afraid to go to work, buy groceries or even meet her friends outside. Her husband, she said, urged her not to leave the house unless absolutely necessary until her visa is approved. Many other Chinese immigrants in her community share her fears, she said.“People are very scared,” Jenny said. “My husband and I are very scared. So many policies have changed and so many more are coming from White House that might have an impact on us.”On the campaign trail, Trump said he would prioritize deporting Chinese nationals of military age, suggesting without proof that they are building an army in the US. Immigrant rights advocates say Trump’s targeted rhetoric has instilled an unprecedented level of fear and anxiety in Chinese communities, both among newly arrived migrants and undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for decades.Two months into his return to office, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) have already stepped up arrests across the country, conducted raids in major cities, detaining people at restaurants, local businesses and other public spaces. Ice operations have also occurred in sanctuary cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.View image in fullscreenRoughly 390,000 undocumented Chinese immigrants live in the US, according to the Migration Policy Institute, with more than a quarter residing in California. Nearly 38,000 of them are thought to have final removal orders, according to Ice data from November.Jose Ng, the immigrants-rights program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action, said there was a lot of fear among undocumented Chinese immigrants where he works in the Bay Area, especially those with final removal orders, a ruling that formalizes an individual’s deportation from the US. The organization operates a rapid response hotline for emergency immigration situations. Over the past six weeks, Ng said the service has received an uptick of frantic calls, up to 40 per night.“We have people reporting Ice activity and presence in their neighborhood,” he said. “We have people sending us information about Ice pickups.”Chinese for Affirmative Action, Ng said, works closely with ethnic media to inform undocumented Chinese immigrants about their rights and the latest immigration policy updates. It also organizes “know your rights” clinics with community members and conducts training on Ice protocols.That prospect has become increasingly likely. In the past eight months, Ice has sent five charter flights to China carrying hundreds of Chinese migrants. Experts say deportations have increased as the Chinese government said it is willing to repatriate confirmed Chinese nationals – a more cooperative stance than it has taken in the past. Many undocumented Chinese people, Ng said, have lived in the US for decades but have had no viable way of obtaining legal immigration status. They are worried about being deported to a homeland they have not set foot on in years.The GOP’s anti-Chinese stance on immigration, experts said, is partially a reaction to the influx of Chinese migrants at the southern border over the past few years. In 2023, more than 35,000 Chinese migrants traversed the dangerous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama and entered the US from Mexico – 10 times higher than the previous year’s figure. (Crossings have dropped significantly since then due to stricter enforcement from US and Mexican authorities.)View image in fullscreenThe Darién Gap has not historically been a popular route for Chinese people who, in the past, have largely entered the US on tourist visas then overstayed, say experts. But as China’s economy faltered, and visas and other legal paths to immigration in the US became prohibitively difficult to obtain, more migrants have turned to border crossing as an alternative. The social media platform WeChat, which provides detailed instructions on crossing the Darién Gap and finding boarding houses, is also responsible for the influx of Chinese migrants at the southern border, said Connie Chung Joe, chief executive officer of the civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California.“There’s a whole system set up for Chinese migrants who are mostly going through San Diego,” she said.The Trump administration said the crackdowns would first target violent criminals. But across the country, reports of Ice agents rounding up migrants and people with permits are causing concern in immigrant communities. Fewer than half of the roughly 8,200 people arrested from 20 January through 2 February have criminal convictions, according to an analysis of government data from ProPublica and the Texas Tribune.Chung Joe said Trump’s deportation campaign had caused “a lot of concern and anxiety” in Chinese enclaves in Los Angeles such as Monterey Park and Alhambra.Frank Hwu, an Alhambra-based lawyer who has represented thousands of Chinese undocumented immigrants, said that in the past, Chinese migrants were primarily single men and young adults seeking better financial opportunities in the US. The more recent arrivals have come together as a family. “They have young children and grandparents,” Hwu said.Martin Kim, director of immigration advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, said it was unlikely that Trump has the authority or resources to fulfill his hardline promises on immigration, given the astronomical cost of mass deportations. (The American Immigration Council estimated the cost of removing 1 million people a year to be about $88bn.)Despite the administration’s fearmongering tactics, Kim said undocumented people should not hesitate to seek legal advice about their rights and how to deal with Ice.“It’s important to note that fear is exactly what this flurry of policy changes is meant to inflict,” Kim said. “There is a difference between what he’s indicated he wants to do and what he’s able to do.” More

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      White House’s defense for not recalling deportations ‘one heck of a stretch’, says judge

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      The Trump administration claimed to a federal judge on Monday that it did not recall deportation flights of hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members over the weekend despite his specific instructions because that was not expressly included in the formal written order issued afterwards.The administration also said that even if James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, had included that instruction in his formal order, his authority to compel the planes to return disappeared the moment the planes entered international airspace.The extraordinary arguments suggested the White House took advantage of its own perceived uncertainty with a federal court order to do as it pleased, testing the limits of the judicial system to hold to account an administration set on circumventing adverse rulings.An incredulous Boasberg at one stage asked the administration: “Isn’t then the better course to return the planes to the United States and figure out what to do, than say: ‘We don’t care; we’ll do what we want’?”The showdown between the administration and the judge reached a crescendo over the weekend after the US president secretly invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport, without normal due process, Venezuelans over age 14 who the government says belong to the Tren de Aragua gang.The underlying basis for Trump to invoke the statute is unclear because it historically requires the president to identify a state adversary, and Boasberg on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order blocking deportations of five Venezuelans who had filed suit against the government.At an emergency hearing on Saturday evening, Boasberg extended his injunction to block the deportation of all Venezuelan migrants using Alien Enemies Act authority, and told the administration that any deportation flights already in the air needed to be recalled.By the time of the hearing, two flights had already taken off and a third flight left after Boasberg issued his ruling. All three flights landed in El Salvador, where the deportees were taken to a special maximum security prison, after Boasberg issued his written order.The Trump administration claimed at a hearing on Monday that it believed it had complied with the written order issued by Boasberg, which did not include his verbal instructions for any flights already departed to return to the US.“Oral statements are not injunctions and the written orders always supersede whatever may have been stated in the record,” Abhishek Kambli, the deputy assistant attorney general for the justice department’s civil division, argued for the administration.The judge appeared unimpressed by that contention. “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.The administration also suggested that even if Boasberg had included the directive in his written order, by the time he had granted the temporary restraining order, the deportation flights were outside of the judge’s jurisdiction.The judge expressed similar skepticism at the second argument, noting that federal judges still have authority over US government officials who make the decisions about the planes, even if the planes themselves were outside of US airspace.“The problem is the equitable power of United States courts is not so limited,” Boasberg said. “It’s not a question that the plane was or was not in US airspace.” Boasberg added. “My equitable powers are pretty clear that they do not lapse at the airspace’s edge.”At times, the Trump administration appeared to touch on a separate but related position that the judge’s authority to block the deportations clashed with Trump’s authority to direct US military forces and foreign relations without review by the courts.Boasberg expressed doubt at the strength of that argument, as well as Kambli’s separate claim that he could not provide more details about when the deportation flights took off and how many flights left the US on Saturday, before and possibly after his order.Kambli said he was not authorized to provide those details on account of national security concerns, even in private, to the judge himself. Asked whether the information was classified, Kambli demurred. Boasberg ordered the government to provide him with more information by noon on Tuesday.The statements offered by the administration in federal district court in Washington offered a more legally refined version of public statements from White House officials about the possibility that they had defied a court order.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted on Monday that the administration acted within “the bounds of immigration law in this country” and said the Trump team did not believe a verbal order carried the same legal weight as a written order.But the White House’s “border czar” Tom Homan offered greater defiance at the court order and told Fox News in an interview that the court order came too late for Boasberg to have jurisdiction over the matter, saying: “I don’t care what the judges think.” More

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      White House denies violating judge’s order with Venezuela deportations

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      The White House has denied allegations that it engaged in a “a blatant violation” of a judge’s order by deporting about 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador on Saturday, with the US border czar appearing to contradict the denial on Monday by declaring: “I don’t care what the judges think.”The US district judge James E Boasberg has scheduled a hearing for Monday afternoon to demand an explanation about why his Saturday order temporarily blocking the deportation flights had apparently been ignored.The Trump administration had ordered at least some of the deportations using the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 that is meant to be used during wartime. The president quietly invoked the law on Friday and progressive groups almost immediately sued to stop it.On Saturday, during a court hearing over the case, Boasberg added a verbal order that any flights that had already departed with Venezuelan immigrants using the Alien Enemies Act turn around and return to the US.“This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told the justice department, according to the Washington Post.At that point (about 6.51pm ET, according to Axios), both flights were off the Yucatán peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.Later on Saturday night, however, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, confirmed that the planes had landed in his country and the alleged gang members were in custody, posting on social media, “Oopsie … too late” above a news article about the judge’s order to turn the planes around.White House officials insisted that the migrants were no longer in US territory when the judge issued his order, claiming that it therefore did not apply.The administration “did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order”, said the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in a statement on Monday.She also argued, however, that the order itself did not need to be followed in the first place.“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from US territory,” Leavitt said. “The written order and the administration’s actions do not conflict.“As the supreme court has repeatedly made clear – federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the president’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from US soil and repel a declared invasion.“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrying foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil.”Other Trump administration officials, who have not been named, echoed similar statements to Axios about the ruling coming too late, claiming that the administration did not defy the judge as the planes were “already outside of US airspace” and therefore arguing that the order was “not applicable”.In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the administration said that the judge’s oral order was “not enforceable”.ABC News also reported that the administration cited “operational” and “national security” reasons that the planes needed to land, and that the two planes took off during the hearing on Saturday.When asked by a reporter on Sunday whether the administration violated the judge’s orders, Donald Trump said: “I don’t know, you have to speak to the lawyers about that.” He added: “I can tell you this, these were bad people.”Reuters reported that the Trump administration stated in a court filing on Sunday that “some” of the Venezuelans had already been removed from the US before the judge’s order, but did not provide any further details.The New York Times noted that the filing implied that the government had other legal grounds for the deportations of the Venezuelans, other than the use of the Alien Enemies Act that was blocked by the judge.The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, which sued to stop the use of the act, added in a court filing on Monday that they believe that the government violated the court order , calling the administration’s actions a “blatant violation of the court’s order”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe rights groups asked the judge to compel the administration to clarify whether any flights departed after the judge’s orders, and to provide more information on the flight timings.On Monday morning, Boasberg scheduled a 4pm hearing for the Trump administration to explain if they defied his order.Later on Monday morning, Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, told reporters: “By the time the order came, the plane was already over international waters, with a plane full of terrorists and significant public safety threats.”He added: “To turn the plane around over international waters” and “come back with terrorists back to the United States, that’s not what this president promised the American people”.He followed up the remarks in an appearance on Fox and Friends, where according to the Hill he said: “I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care.”He repeated his claim that the flight was “already in international waters” but also questioned why the judge would want “terrorists returned to the United States”: “Look, President Trump, by proclamation, invoked the authorities of the Alien Enemies Act, which he has a right to do, and it’s a gamechanger.”The Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck criticised the administration’s argument that it was too late to act once the planes had left the US. He argued on social media that “a federal court’s jurisdiction does not stop at the water’s edge” but rather, “the question is whether the defendants are subject to the court order, not where the conduct being challenged takes place”.Vladeck also told the Associated Press that although the judge’s verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final written order, nevertheless the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.Peter Markowitz, a Cardozo Law School professor and immigration enforcement expert, told Reuters that he believed the Trump administration’s actions “most certainly violate” the court’s order.In a statement on Monday, the Democratic senators Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, Dick Durbin and Peter Welch condemned Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.“Let’s be clear: we are not at war, and immigrants are not invading our country,” they said. “Furthermore, courts determine whether people have broken the law – not a president acting alone, and not immigration agents picking and choosing who gets imprisoned or deported.”The deportations may not be the only instance of the White House directly violating a court order, after the administration reportedly deported Dr Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and Brown University professor, despite a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion.Citing her attorney and court documents, the New York Times reported that the 34-year-old Lebanese citizen – who had a valid US visa – was detained on Thursday upon returning to the US after visiting family in Lebanon. A federal judge had reportedly ordered the government to provide the court with 48 hours’ notice before deporting Alawieh, but she was reportedly put on a flight to Paris anyway. A hearing in her case is set for Monday. More

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      French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

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      A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then responded to Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday by calling him an “unnamed low-level French politician” and saying the US would keep the statue.Taunting France’s conquest by Nazi Germany during the second world war before the allied forces – including the US – then defeated the Nazis, Leavitt added: “It’s only because of America that the French are not speaking German right now.” She also said France “should be very grateful to our great country”.Glucksmann, of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, kicked off the exchange Sunday when – evidently with his tongue in his cheek – he said it appeared to him that the US had come to “despise” the statue as well as what it symbolizes.“So, it will be just fine here at home,” Glucksmann said.Glucksmann also referred to a crackdown on “scientific freedom” in the US in his remarks at a political party convention, first reported by Agence France-Presse.His comments amount to a verbal protest after Trump suspended military aid and intelligence gathering on Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to strong-arm its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the negotiations to end the war started by Russia, which invaded in February 2022.The US president upbraided Zelenskyy during a televised diplomatic meltdown in the Oval Office on 28 February, which caused significant alarm across Europe for appearing to signal that the Trump administration generally favors Russia in the conflict. The US later restored military aid, but on Monday it was reported the US was withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine.Trump and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, for whom the US president has repeatedly expressed admiration, are tentatively scheduled to talk on Tuesday over the phone about ending the war in Ukraine.Glucksmann’s remarks additionally nodded to Elon Musk’s brutal staffing and spending cuts to the US federal government, which have affected numerous health and climate research workers. Glucksmann said France could be in a position to benefit if any of the fired workers emigrated.“If you want to fire your best researchers, if you want to fire all the people who, through their freedom and their sense of innovations, their taste for doubt and research, have made your country the world’s leading power, then we’re going to welcome them,” said Glucksmann.“Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.’ We gave it to you as a gift.”France did indeed present the 305ft-tall, 450,000lb Statue of Liberty to the US in Paris on 4 July 1884, the 108th anniversary of the American declaration of independence from the UK. The US needed crucial military aid from France to win its revolutionary war and gain independence from the UK.Nicknamed “Lady Liberty”, the torch-bearing statue – designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi of France – was then installed on an island in New York City’s harbor and dedicated in 1886. There is a smaller copy of the statue on an island in the Seine river in Paris.A bronze plaque on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal contains the words of a poem titled The New Colossus, which overtly references the large number of immigrants who arrived in the US in the 19th century and partially reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”Trump has been aggressively pursuing the deportation of immigrants. Recently, his administration deported a Brown University medical professor to Lebanon, despite her having a valid US work visa and a judge’s order not to do so.Prosecutors reportedly alleged that the professor had recently attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among other things.The US also recently deported to El Salvador more than 250 people whom the White House accused of belonging to Venezuelan and Salvadorian gangs, despite a judge’s order halting the flight.David Smith contributed reporting More