(WASHINGTON) — A mega-bill encompassing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda appears to be in jeopardy as several Republican hardliners on Thursday signaled their opposition to advancing the package out of the House Budget Committee later this week.
“I am voting no,” Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said Thursday afternoon, citing concerns about the bill adding to a bloated national debt.
With Republican Rep. Brandon Gill expected to be absent, the GOP can only afford to lose one vote in the House Budget Committee to advance the bill. The committee is slated to convene Friday morning.
Norman, who has had his arm twisted to fall in line on more than one occasion, said fellow Republican Rep. Chip Roy plans to vote no and “thinks” Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia will vote against advancing the bill as well. Oklahoma Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen, a member of the House Budget Committee, appeared skeptical about the bill moving forward.
“We have a duty to know the true cost of this legislation before advancing it. If we are to operate in truth, we must have true numbers — even if that means taking some more time to obtain that truth,” he said on X, echoing similar concerns raised by Roy.
Republicans will “go back to work” if the bill fails out of committee Friday, Norman said.
Should the bill make it out of committee, Speaker Mike Johnson still faces a tough road ahead as the Republican majority can withstand three no votes from within their ranks before losing sufficient support for passage. The effort to pass the Trump-backed bill is another crucial test of Johnson’s speakership as he works to unify his divided conference.
Earlier Thursday, Johnson held a high-stakes meeting to hash out the remaining sticking points related to Medicaid and tax reform — key components of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — that have so far prevented leadership from locking down sufficient support for the bill’s passage.
Johnson told reporters after the meeting that Republicans had “a very thoughtful discussion,” adding that he plans to work through the weekend to come to what’s been an elusive consensus on the SALT caps — the amount of state and local taxes that can be written off on federal tax returns — as moderates draw a red line opposing the proposed $30,000 cap on those deductions.
“I think everyone would agree that it was productive and that we are moving the ball forward,” Johnson said, adding he is striving “to meet the equilibrium point that everyone can be satisfied with.”
On Thursday morning, House Republicans formally unveiled the text of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — a 1,116-page mega-bill.
Johnson said earlier that he’s not budging on the Memorial Day target to dispatch the mega-bill from the House.
Johnson claimed Republicans are aiming to pass the package in a “deficit-neutral way” when pressed if the package will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.
“If you do more on SALT, you have to find more in savings,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday heard oral arguments over President Donald Trump’s emergency request to roll back nationwide injunctions blocking his executive order to end birthright citizenship.
The rare May sitting of the court sets the stage for a decision by this summer on whether Trump can move forward with plans to limit U.S. citizenship only to children born on American soil to lawful permanent residents.
The case is also expected to address the legality of individual district court judges single-handedly blocking a presidential policy nationwide. Trump is seeking to dissolve judicial orders preventing mass federal layoffs, funding freezes, and expedited deportation protocols.
For more than a century, courts and the government have interpreted the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause to apply to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of a child’s parents.
The Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer kicked off the first Supreme Court oral argument over Trump’s second-term policies by arguing that the ability of one district judge to issue a nationwide order creates a fundamentally unfair legal playing field for the government.
“Our primary contention is that the citizenship clause related to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens who weren’t even present as a discrete class at that time,” he told the justices.
Sauer said that national injunctions force district judges to rush their “high stakes, low information decisions,” encourage forum shopping, and prevent the “percolation of novel and difficult legal questions.”
“They operate asymmetrically, forcing the government to win everywhere, while the plaintiffs can win anywhere,” said Sauer, who last year argued on behalf of Trump in a personal capacity to push for presidential immunity.
His claim was immediately met with skepticism from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who suggested that such a theory would not only limit the ability of the district court but also the Supreme Court from issuing nationwide relief.
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” she said before making an analogy to when the balance of power shifts in Washington.
“When a new president orders that because there’s so much gun violence going on in the country, and he comes in and he says, ‘I have the right to take away the guns from everyone,’ and he sends out the military to seize everyone’s guns. We and the courts have to sit back and wait until every name plaintiff gets or every plaintiff whose gun is taken comes into court?” she asked.
On the issue of the legality of Trump’s executive order to limit U.S. citizenship only to children born on American soil to lawful permanent residents, Sotomayor was clear on where she stood. The order, she said, was unlawful.
“As far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents, and you are claiming that…both the Supreme Court and no lower court can stop an executive from universally violating those holdings by this court,” Sotomayor said.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order unilaterally declaring that only newborns whose parents have permanent legal status are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and therefore eligible to be citizens.
“This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained during a February briefing.
Three different sets of plaintiffs sued to block the order, including a group of 22 states, immigrant advocacy groups, and pregnant women whose soon-to-be-born children would be affected.
“Birthright citizenship is at the core of our Nation’s foundational precept that all people born on our soil are created equal, regardless of their parentage,” attorneys for the immigrant advocates wrote in legal briefs.
An estimated 150,000 children are born each year in the U.S. to parents who are not legal permanent residents, according to government data.
“Instead of the right to full participation and belonging in their home country — the United States — these children will be forced to live in the shadow,” the states warned in court filings, “under the constant risk of deportation while the appeals run their course.”
Federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state — and three federal appeals court panels — have issued nationwide injunctions keeping the Trump policy on hold during litigation, concluding that it very likely violates the Constitution and high court precedent.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the case presented is as clear as it is here,” said Judge John Coughenour of the Western District of Washington during a January hearing in the case. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
In 1898, the Supreme Court directly addressed the question of citizenship for children born to non-citizens on U.S. soil, ruling in the landmark case U.S. v Wong Kim Ark that they are Americans under the law.
“The [14th] Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States,” wrote Justice Horace Gray for the 6-2 majority. “Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.”
The issue arrives back at the high court in an unusual posture.
Neither side has briefed the justices on the constitutionality of the executive order. Instead, the primary dispute is over the scope of injunctions issued by individual district court judges.
“It focuses only on whether it is appropriate for courts to issue nationwide injunctions against the President’s egregiously unconstitutional executive order, as opposed to remedies limited to people directly involved in the litigation or those living in states that have sued the government,” said Ilya Somin, a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.
The Trump administration has complained that judges should only be allowed to block a contested policy insofar as it impacts the actual plaintiffs who brought the case — not block it universally.
“Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” acting solicitor general Sarah Harris wrote in the government’s application to the court.
Many of the administration’s high-profile attempts to reshape the federal government, sharply curtail federal spending, transform immigration policy, and limit protections for LGBTQ people have been blocked by nationwide injunctions issued by district courts.
Justice Department attorneys from administrations of both political parties have long complained about the overuse of nationwide injunctions and alleged incursion on executive branch power. The court may use this case to articulate parameters for when such sweeping injunctions are warranted and when they are not.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” Harris said, calling on the justices to narrow the injunctions applied to the birthright citizenship order.
Immigrant advocates, civil rights organizations, and Democratic state attorneys general have warned that blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship in some places but not others — or, exempting a small group of plaintiffs but not others — would create chaos.
“A situation where Trump’s order is in force for some people, but not others (or, alternatively, in some states but not others), creates obvious confusion and anomalies,” he said, “especially when it comes to a policy (citizenship rules) that is supposed to be uniform throughout the nation.”
Some legal scholars say it may be impossible for the court to address the question of nationwide injunctions without also resolving the underlying dispute over Trump’s attempt to redefine birthright citizenship.
“They’re going to have to address the whole thing,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law. “The only way to avoid the scope of the injunction question is to rule on the merits. I believe they’re going to rule against Trump. He gets maybe one or two votes but not much more than that.”
A decision in the case is expected by early summer.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar is taking an unorthodox step in defiance of his party’s leadership, forcing an impeachment vote against President Donald Trump on Wednesday that both Republicans and his Democratic colleagues threaten to kill.
“We’re going to hear a ton of reasons why not to hold this president accountable. We’re going to hear a ton of reasons from both sides of the aisle, but we are going to press ahead because we believe this is the right thing to do,” Thanedar said at a news conference outside the Capitol early Wednesday.
“We believe this is absolutely the right time. This is absolutely the right thing to do.”
House GOP leaders will introduce a motion to table the legislation, killing Thanedar’s measure, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said Democrat leaders would join them.
“Our focus is on health care being stripped away from the American people. That is the most urgent and dire thing that we could be talking about this week. Everything else is a distraction,” Aguilar said at his weekly news conference.
Taking a jab at Thanedar, Aguilar added that while his conference has its differences, “this is one that is a pretty easy call.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the effort “another embarrassing political stunt.”
“While Democrats are throwing fits, impeding law enforcement, playing political games, and demonstrating how far out of touch they are — Republicans are working to deliver lower taxes for families, restore American energy dominance, strengthen border security, restore peace through strength, and make government work more efficiently and effectively. The contrast has never been more clear,” Johnson said in a statement.
At a rally last month celebrating his first 100 days, Trump, who was impeached twice during his first term, said, “Here we go again.” He said the fact that Democrats have “no control” over “a dumb guy like this” shows “they have no confidence anymore as a party.”
Thanedar introduced seven articles of impeachment against Trump last month, arguing the president is abusing the power of his office for his own self-interest and repeatedly defied the Constitution, among other broad charges.
Without the backing of the top Democrats in the House nor a majority of his caucus, Thanedar’s effort went nowhere until earlier this week when he introduced his impeachment resolution as “privileged,” forcing the chamber to consider the legislation within two legislative days.
Thanedar promised to fight on.
“Will I succeed this week? Maybe not, but we’ll continue to do this until we have a victory,” he said at his news conference. “We’ll continue to fight until we have a victory, until we remove this president from office for his unconstitutional, illegal, impeachable misconduct. We are going to continue.”
“[House Democratic leaders] want to focus on other issues, which is fine. I just tell them that, hey, we can do that, and we can do this as well.”
However, his move would force Democrats to go on the record on this issue. Thanedar dismissed concerns that his efforts could hurt vulnerable Democratic colleagues, arguing that Republicans would have to vote on it as well.
“We take hard votes every day, every day there is a hard vote to take. That’s my job … They just need to look into not what plays well in politically, not what the polls are saying. We got to do the right thing,” Thanedar argued.
Thanedar, who was elected to the then-open seat in 2022, faces a tough reelection battle. His fellow Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent progressive, endorsed Thanedar’s primary challenger, state Rep. Donavan McKinney, earlier this week.
“I’m done with absent members who don’t call their residents back,” Tlaib said in a post on X, referring to Thanedar.
-ABC News’ Lauren Peller and John Parkinson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem came under fire from House Democrats while testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on her department’s 2026 budget on Wednesday.
The hearing quickly turned to immigration and featured back-and-forths with Democrats on the committee, with ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., telling Noem that under her leadership, it is a “sad day for DHS.”
“Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this that served as a lead Democrat on this committee. Even when, madam secretary, my Republican colleagues and I had strong disagreements, we still have productive conversations and did our duty keep America safe. But that’s not the case any longer,” Thompson told Noem, adding that he is glad that Noem “found time among your many photo ops and costume changes to testify.”
“On your watch, the department is breaking the law, it’s hurting people, and it’s making America less safe,” he added. “The Trump administration is outright lying to the courts and the American people.”
Noem was asked about what occurred last week in New Jersey as three members of Congress attempted to gain access to Delany Hall, a private detention center that is holding ICE detainees, and testified that it was “lawless.” The incident outside the detention center resulted in a melee and ended with the Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat who is also running for New Jersey governor, getting arrested.
“We have footage of those members of Congress slamming their bodies into our law enforcement officers, shoving them screaming profanities in their faces, striking them with their fists and otherwise assaulting law enforcement,” Noem testified. “The behavior was lawlessness, and it was beneath this body. Members of Congress should not break into detention centers or federal facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we certainly would have facilitated a tour.”
Delany Hall falls under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the members of Congress argued they had a right to conduct lawful “oversight” on the facility through their congressional responsibilities.
“They were cooperating with criminals to create criminal acts. This wasn’t oversight. This was committing felonies,” Noem said earlier this week on Fox News. “This was going out and attacking people who stand up for the rule of law, and it was absolutely horrible.”
Later in the hearing, Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., slammed Noem for what he said was a lack of access to legal counsel.
“You are deporting children with cancer, children who are U.S. citizens, a gay makeup artist who committed no crime and didn’t even enter the country illegally,” Magaziner told Noem. “Instead of focusing on real criminals, you have allowed innocent children to be deported while you fly around the country playing dress-up for the cameras.”
Meanwhile, Noem and House Republicans highlighted what she called “total operational control” of the southern border. Noem said she doesn’t know how many immigrants lacking legal status to be in the U.S. were released into the country during the Biden administration and touted that the Trump administration has focused on fixing the border crisis.
“We truly don’t have any idea how many dangerous individuals are still in the United States of America. Since President Trump has been in office, just in these few short months, we have deported over 250 known terrorists out of the country,” she said.
Noem was also pressed on whether everyone ICE has arrested has received due process — and she answered yes, through the tools that Congress has given it, arguing that expedited removal is a tool that Congress has allowed.
Later in the hearing, the DHS chief was asked about suspending habeas corpus, which ensures people are not unjustly detained or imprisoned, and whether it falls under the constitutional guidelines that a president can suspend it.
“I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but I believe it does,” Noem said, adding that it isn’t her authority to do so. “Well, this is something that’s not in my purview to weigh in on. This is the president’s prerogative, and he has not indicated that they will or will not be taking action.”
Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, has floated this idea.
Sparking a contentious back-and-forth, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., showed Noem a picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s hand that appeared to have the letters MS-13 on his hands to represent what the tattoos mean.
Noem would not answer the question as to whether the photo was edited or manipulated to put the letters on his knuckles, and she appeared to avoid analyzing the photo.
“You won’t look at the photo, and we will not be bringing was it doctored or not in staying here, and you look to your right, the photo in front of madam secretary,” Swalwell said. “Can you look to the right at the photo in front of you?”
“And the letters MS and the numbers 13 — are those doctored or not?” he asked.
“I don’t have any knowledge as to this photo,” she said, adding it is “unbelievable” that Swalwell wanted to focus on Abrego Garcia.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday over President Donald Trump’s emergency request to roll back nationwide injunctions blocking his executive order to end birthright citizenship.
The rare May sitting of the court sets the stage for a decision by this summer on whether Trump can move forward with plans to limit U.S. citizenship only to children born on American soil to lawful permanent residents.
The case is also expected to address the legality of individual district court judges single-handedly blocking a presidential policy nationwide. Trump is seeking to dissolve judicial orders preventing mass federal layoffs, funding freezes, and expedited deportation protocols.
For more than a century, courts and the government have interpreted the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause to apply to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of a child’s parents.
The Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order unilaterally declaring that only newborns whose parents have permanent legal status are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and therefore eligible to be citizens.
“This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained during a February briefing.
Three different sets of plaintiffs sued to block the order, including a group of 22 states, immigrant advocacy groups, and pregnant women whose soon-to-be-born children would be affected.
“Birthright citizenship is at the core of our Nation’s foundational precept that all people born on our soil are created equal, regardless of their parentage,” attorneys for the immigrant advocates wrote in legal briefs.
An estimated 150,000 children are born each year in the U.S. to parents who are not legal permanent residents, according to government data.
“Instead of the right to full participation and belonging in their home country — the United States — these children will be forced to live in the shadow,” the states warned in court filings, “under the constant risk of deportation while the appeals run their course.”
Federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state — and three federal appeals court panels — have issued nationwide injunctions keeping the Trump policy on hold during litigation, concluding that it very likely violates the Constitution and high court precedent.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the case presented is as clear as it is here,” said Judge John Coughenour of the Western District of Washington during a January hearing in the case. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
In 1898, the Supreme Court directly addressed the question of citizenship for children born to non-citizens on U.S. soil, ruling in the landmark case U.S. v Wong Kim Ark that they are Americans under the law.
“The [14th] Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States,” wrote Justice Horace Gray for the 6-2 majority. “Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.”
The issue arrives back at the high court in an unusual posture.
Neither side has briefed the justices on the constitutionality of the executive order. Instead, the primary dispute is over the scope of injunctions issued by individual district court judges.
“It focuses only on whether it is appropriate for courts to issue nationwide injunctions against the President’s egregiously unconstitutional executive order, as opposed to remedies limited to people directly involved in the litigation or those living in states that have sued the government,” said Ilya Somin, a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.
The Trump administration has complained that judges should only be allowed to block a contested policy insofar as it impacts the actual plaintiffs who brought the case — not block it universally.
“Only this Court’s intervention can prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,” acting solicitor general Sarah Harris wrote in the government’s application to the court.
Many of the administration’s high-profile attempts to reshape the federal government, sharply curtail federal spending, transform immigration policy, and limit protections for LGBTQ people have been blocked by nationwide injunctions issued by district courts.
Justice Department attorneys from administrations of both political parties have long complained about the overuse of nationwide injunctions and alleged incursion on executive branch power. The court may use this case to articulate parameters for when such sweeping injunctions are warranted and when they are not.
“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” Harris said, calling on the justices to narrow the injunctions applied to the birthright citizenship order.
Immigrant advocates, civil rights organizations, and Democratic state attorneys general have warned that blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship in some places but not others — or, exempting a small group of plaintiffs but not others — would create chaos.
“A situation where Trump’s order is in force for some people, but not others (or, alternatively, in some states but not others), creates obvious confusion and anomalies,” he said, “especially when it comes to a policy (citizenship rules) that is supposed to be uniform throughout the nation.”
Some legal scholars say it may be impossible for the court to address the question of nationwide injunctions without also resolving the underlying dispute over Trump’s attempt to redefine birthright citizenship.
“They’re going to have to address the whole thing,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law. “The only way to avoid the scope of the injunction question is to rule on the merits. I believe they’re going to roll against Trump. He gets maybe one or two votes but not much more than that.”
A decision in the case is expected by early summer.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is requesting that the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General launch an inquiry on the department’s role in “facilitating and serving as a pass-through” for the Trump administration to accept a luxury jet donated by the Qatari government to use as Air Force One, ABC News has exclusively learned.
President Donald Trump confirmed on social media this week an ABC News report that his administration was preparing to accept the aircraft, calling it a “very public and transparent transaction” with the Defense Department.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, also signed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., along with six other Senate Democrats, Schiff raised to acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins a number of constitutional, legal and national security concerns related to the possible gift from Qatar.
“Public reports raise the troubling prospect that the Administration involved DOD to (1) launder this impermissible gift, so that the Department could provide cover to give the transfer of the plane the appearance of an official gift; (2) place the onus on DOD to retrofit the plane at considerable cost to U.S. taxpayers; and (3) ultimately transfer it to President Trump’s library prior to the end of his term for his continued use in a personal capacity,” the senators wrote in the letter.
The Democrats asked Stebbins to launch an inquiry into the DOD’s involvement with facilitating the potential foreign gift transfer and requested a “comprehensive audit and investigation” into any “fraud, waste, and abuse” when a potential transfer is completed, given that a mandatory retrofit of the plane would need to occur if it were to be used as Air Force One. They also asserted that the Trump administration is sidestepping constitutionally provided congressional guardrails by accepting the foreign gift.
“DOD risks becoming embroiled in a brazen attempt to evade constitutional limitations on the acceptance of personal gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval,” they continued in his letter.
The letter also requested, “in classified form if needed,” the cost estimate and probable timeline for retrofitting and installing communications and other equipment necessary to meet security and counterintelligence requirements for the Air Force One fleet and any timeline the White House has dictated for this plane to be ready for use by Trump.
They also asked whether necessary modifications can be made within such a time frame to meet Air Force One standards and what possible risks could be associated with that timeline. Additionally, they asked for answers on whether the existing contract for other Air Force One aircraft will continue or be terminated and what the cost of any termination would be.
The final request is whether there would be any counterintelligence and security risks with incorporating this aircraft, provided by a foreign government, into the Air Force One fleet.
“The DoD OIG received the letter this afternoon and we are reviewing it,” Pentagon Office of Inspector General spokeswoman Mollie Halpern said in a statement.
The primary aircraft used in the current Air Force One fleet include two aging Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets that have been operational since the early 1990s. The Air Force contract with Boeing to replace those aircraft has been riddled with delays and cost overruns, with Boeing’s most recent estimated delivery date now slated for 2027.
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are the other Democrats who signed Schiff’s letter.
Earlier on Tuesday, Schumer sent a separate letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi expressing concern about the “appearance of naked corruption” posed by Trump’s reported plans to accept a jet from the Qatari government. Schumer also said he believes the jet poses a “grave security risk” and cited reporting that Bondi personally signed off on the transaction. In light of what Schumer called Bondi’s “central role in approving the proposal,” he asked Bondi to respond to a number of questions related to the proposed gifted plane.
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged migrant gang members is lawful, but determined that the administration has provided insufficient notice before deporting migrants under the proclamation.
U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Haines’ ruling stands in contrast to two other federal judges who have ruled that Trump’s use of the AEA for deportations is unlawful.
The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to carry out deportations by proclaiming that migrant gang members constitute a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
Haines, a Trump appointee, said she found that the proclamation “complies with AEA,” but said that the Trump administration “must provide greater notice to those subject to removal under the AEA than they are currently providing.”
In her ruling, Judge Haines said that the declarations submitted by the Trump administration to the court “indicate that there is factual basis for President Trump’s conclusions in the Proclamation” and pointed to the designation made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization.
As a result, Judge Haines said she found that the proclamation meets the definition of a “predatory incursion” under the AEA.
Haines also said she will afford “substantial deference to the conclusion” by Trump that TdA is “acting at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
“It would be intolerable that courts, without the relevant information, should review and perhaps nullify actions of the Executive taken on information properly held in secret,” Judge Haines said.
However, the judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot remove the petitioner, a Venezuelan man in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody identified as A.S.R., unless he is given 21 days notice and “an opportunity to be heard.” Haines added the notice to A.S.R. needs to be in English and Spanish and must clearly “articulate the fact that he is subject to removal” under the AEA.
A.S.R., according to the government, was moved to a detention center in Texas last month.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement to ABC News that the ACLU disagrees with the judge’s ruling on the use of the AEA.
“The court properly rejected the government’s argument that they can remove people with only 12 hours’ notice,” said Gelernt. “But we disagree with the court’s ruling that the Alien Enemies Act can be used during peacetime.”
In her ruling, Judge Haines said the case “implicates significant issues.”
“In resolving those issues, this Court’s unflagging obligation is to apply the law as written,” Haines wrote in her conclusion. “The court now leaves it to the Political Branches of the government, and ultimately to the people who elect those individuals to decide whether the laws and those executive them continue to reflect their will.”
Earlier this month, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting migrants under the AEA in Southern District of Texas, ruling that its invocation of the AEA “exceeds the scope” of the law.
A week later, a federal judge in New York ruled that the AEA was “not validly invoked” by the Trump administration when it sought to deport two alleged Tren de Aragua members from that state.
(WASHINGTON) — Ed Martin, the outgoing Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney who will soon start his role as DOJ’s pardon attorney and chief of the so-called “Weaponization Working Group,” said he plans to review and scrutinize the last-minute pardons issued by former President Joe Biden.
Martin’s appointment to several powerful positions at the Justice Department — following his rejected confirmation by the U.S. Senate — appears to have emboldened him to more aggressively pursue political targets of President Donald Trump, according to a series of recent interviews with right-wing media outlets and his Tuesday press conference.
“I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny. And they need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that’s used correctly. So I do think we’re going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did,” Martin told ABC News during the press conference.
“If they’re null and void, I’m not sure how that operates, but I can tell you we’ve had already, I’ve had in my current position, or my position as US Attorney, we had been taking a look at some of the conduct surrounding the pardons and the Biden White House,” he said.
Martin, however, did say that he doesn’t think Biden’s use of “auto-pen” is necessarily a problem, even though Trump suggested that’s what he believes makes them invalid.
Martin also suggested that officials whom he’s unable to charge should be publicly shamed, despite DOJ policy that clearly states that prosecutors should avoid any public comments about uncharged people.
“There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them, and we will name them. And in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are shamed. And that’s a fact. That’s the way things work, and so that’s how I believe the job operates,” Martin said.
On his final day in office, Biden issued several last-minute pardons to family members, including his brother, James Biden and his wife, Sara, his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens, his brother, Francis. The former president had also pardoned his son, Hunter, for tax and gun crimes a month prior.
Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, who worked under the Biden administration to coordinate the nation’s COVID-19 response and faced public scrutiny from President Donald Trump.
The former president also pardoned retired Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who scrutinized Trump’s role in the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.
Similarly, Biden pardoned Jan. 6 Committee members who investigated Trump over the insurrection.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration’s move to prioritize the resettlement of white South African refugees in the United States even as it has turned away refugees from countries including Afghanistan and Haiti has sparked allegations of hypocrisy and a double standard, as well as questions about who is footing the bill for the new arrivals.
On Monday, the State Department said it had welcomed 59 Afrikaners whose applications to come to the U.S. were fast-tracked under President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in February titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.” The order called on the administration to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement” for Afrikaners, a South African minority group descended primarily from Dutch settlers, “who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
State Department Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the second-highest-ranking U.S. diplomat, was on hand to greet the new arrivals’ charter flight, and department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce signaled in a statement that additional Afrikaners will soon follow in their footsteps.
“In the coming months, we will continue to welcome more Afrikaner refugees and help them rebuild their lives in our great country,” she said.
However, the State Department has dodged questions about how that travel is being funded.
Typically, when a refugee who is resettled in the U.S. cannot afford the cost of travel, the State Department provides the refugee with an interest-free, repayable loan to fund the travel, which is administered through the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency. Refugees also sign a promissory note guaranteeing they will repay the loan before they depart their country of origin.
But the International Organization for Migration told ABC News it was not involved in administering loans for any of the 59 people who arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport this week, and the Trump administration has repeatedly declined to say whether they paid their own way.
“State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance account funds a variety of programs and activities aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, displaced persons and other vulnerable populations,” a State Department official told ABC News when pressed about the costs.
“This includes activities related to resettling refugees in the United States, such as processing and their initial placement,” the official added.
For decades, the State Department has defended its longstanding policy of making refugees fund their own way to the U.S., arguing it ensures each person assumes responsibility for his or her own success in a new country and that it helps establish credit history.
Critics of the Trump administration’s policy say it is not the only way white South African refugees have received preferential treatment.
On the same day the 59 Afrikaners landed in the Washington, D.C., area, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would terminate temporary protected status, or TPS, for Afghans already in the U.S. — revoking deportation protections issued by the Biden administration in 2021 after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
“We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.”
The Trump administration has also moved to rescind TPS designations for Haiti, Venezuela and Cameroon. Additionally, refugee admissions from other countries have dropped drastically, and financial support for resettlement agencies has also undergone drastic cuts.
Meanwhile, there are doubts about the severity of the security situation that prompted the president to expedite the resettlement of Afrikaners.
Trump’s executive order directly mentioned a controversial South African land seizure law enacted in early 2025 that allowed the country’s government to take land without offering the owners compensation where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
But so far, the South African government has said no land has been seized under the law.
On Monday, Trump also spoke of violent attacks against Afrikaners.
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” the president said. “Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”
Following South Africa’s apartheid era, white and Black landowners have been the target of violent farm attacks. The South African government said the primary motive for the attacks is robbery, but white nationalist groups and others have claimed they are racially motivated.
Trump has been a critic of the South African government’s handling of the situation for years, and in 2018, he posted that he asked that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.”
Elon Musk, a South African native and a top adviser to the president during his second term, has also been vocal about the plight of South African landowners, amplifying claims of “white genocide.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has denied any persecution.
“A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution or economic persecution,” Ramaphosa said on Monday. “They don’t fit that bill.”
Some groups in the U.S. that frequently work with the government to resettle refugees have also pushed back on the Trump administration’s prioritization of Afrikaners, with at least one, the Episcopal Migration Ministries, saying it won’t play a part in resettling them.
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a statement.
ABC’s Armando Torres-García, Luke Barr and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is heading to Iowa Tuesday, fueling speculation that he is mounting a bid for the White House in 2028.
On Tuesday evening, Buttigieg — who served in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as secretary of the Department of Transportation — will make his in-person, public post-administration debut by headlining a town hall with progressive veterans’ group VoteVets Action Fund in Cedar Rapids.
His visit comes after he didn’t rule out a presidential bid during an interview on Tuesday.
In a Substack Live interview with independent journalist Anand Giridharadas on Tuesday, Buttigieg discussed his thought process regarding running for office broadly, and the potential of running for president in 2028 more specifically.
Before making such a decision Buttigieg says he has to “assess the office and what it calls for” as well as “assess what I bring to the table.” He said he’s employed that process to decide to run for other positions.
“… There are times I follow that process and decided to run. And there are times I followed that process and decided not to run. And the process can lead you to surprising places,” he said.
Still, he said he is a “long way off” from a decision.
Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, first rose to national prominence when he ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. During Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign — and later, Vice President Kamala Harris’ own campaign after Biden left the race — Buttigieg served as a key campaign surrogate and was floated as a potential running mate for Harris, who ultimately chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Now Buttigieg is set to speak in Iowa — a state where its caucus often serves as the earliest indication of how America’s voters will choose their primary candidates.
Major General Paul Eaton, chairman of VoteVets Action Fund, is expected to introduce Buttigieg as “a fellow veteran and someone who understands what is at stake for all Americans,” according to remarks first shared with ABC News.
Eaton is expected to say that the reason the group has chosen to hold its town hall in Iowa is to reach those “on the ground, in the heartland, in a so-called red state, talking not just about what has happened but what we can do in response and how we can continue to put pressure on Trump but also the members of Congress who refuse to do their jobs.”
And in the first 100 days or so of President Donald Trump’s administration, Buttigieg has taken his message far and wide. He has launched his own Substack, appeared on numerous podcasts and been a regular voice on cable news.
“Pete has always had a ‘go everywhere and talk to everyone’ mindset. This is an opportunity to hear from the men and women who served our country about challenges they’re facing in the chaos of the current administration and what’s needed for a more secure future, outside of the Washington media bubble and podcast studios,” a Buttigieg spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News.
But now Buttigieg is taking his vision out on the open road. And according to a spokesperson, isn’t stopping with Iowa.
“You can expect to see him continuing this conversation with Americans across the country,” the spokesperson said.
And he subtly hinted at this expanded tour during the conclusion of his appearance on Sirius XM’s Smartless podcast, hosted by actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, remarking: “I’ll be around. I’ll be out there.”
This trip comes as other Democrats whose names have circulated as potential presidential material are making public appearances in important voting states. Both Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Walz will be featured guests at the South Carolina’s Democratic Party’s statewide conference at the end of the month. Walz will also appear at the California Democrats’ convention that same weekend.
Moore and Walz have publicly denied plans for a 2028 presidential run.
ABC New’s Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
