Judge orders Trump administration to explain if they defied his court order by deporting migrants
Hugo Lowell
Federal judge James Boasberg has scheduled a 4pm hearing for the Trump administration to explain if they defied his order not to deport undocumented immigrants suspected of belonging to a Venezuelan gang.
Planes carrying the migrants arrived in El Salvador after Boasberg’s order, and attorneys for some of those deported have argued that it appears the administration willingly defied his instruction that they turn back or refrain from departing the United States. Top administration officials said they disagreed with Boasberg’s order, with some reportedly arguing that it did not apply to the aircraft because they were in international airspace when it was handed down.
Key events
The Trump administration sent 250 people, who were mainly Venezuelan and alleged to be gang members, to El Salvador, where the government has opened its prisons to deportees from the United States.
Human Rights Watch warns that conditions in the prisons are dangerous and inhumane:
Detainees in El Salvador’s prison system are cut off from the outside world and denied any meaningful legal recourse. While [president Nayib] Bukele publicizes his prisons as “the best in the world,” the reality is very different. We have interviewed people released from these prisons and dozens who have relatives in jail. One after the other, we received and verified accounts of dismal detention conditions, torture and death.
One of the people we spoke with was an 18-year-old construction worker who said that police beat prison newcomers with batons for an hour. He said that when he denied being a gang member, they sent him to a dark basement cell with 320 detainees, where prison guards and other detainees beat him every day. One guard beat him so severely once, he said, that it broke a rib.
He said the cell was so crowded that detainees had to sleep on the floor or standing, an allegation we hear frequently, in a prison system where 108,000 detainees—1.7 percent of El Salvador’s population—are crammed into spaces meant for 70,000. The U.S. State Department itself has described these conditions as “life-threatening.”
Like many others, the former detainee said that prisons were filthy and disease-ridden. While the Salvadoran government has denied Human Rights Watch access to their prisons, doctors who visited detention sites told us that tuberculosis, fungal infections, scabies, severe malnutrition and chronic digestive issues were common.
El Salvador’s criminal justice system has a history of jailing US deportees, which has made their gang violence problem worse:
Sending people into such conditions would not only make the U.S. government complicit in violations of human rights, it would also repeat past mistakes. MS13 and Barrio 18, the brutal gangs that until recently terrorized neighborhoods across El Salvador, were born in part from deportations by the U.S. and from El Salvador’s harsh law enforcement practices. Deportations from the U.S. in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, allowed these gangs to expand.
Mass arrests in the 2000s, which the Salvadoran government characterized as a way to curb the gangs, instead gave gang leaders the time and proximity to strengthen their internal structures in prison and a dehumanized population to recruit from. More U.S. deportations to El Salvador during the 2000s built upon this rotten foundation. Salvadoran authorities often assumed that people deported from the U.S. were members of criminal organizations and subjected many to arrests, torture, beatings, sexual assault, disappearances and killings.
Trump threatens Iran after wave of attacks on Houthis
After ordering a wave of military strikes against leaders of the Houthis in Yemen over the weekend, Donald Trump says he will in the future retaliate against Iran for any further attacks by the group.
Iran has long supported the Houthis, who have stepped up attacks on commercial vessels off Yemen’s waters in retaliation for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s what the president wrote on Truth Social:
Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN. Any further attack or retaliation by the “Houthis” will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there. Iran has played “the innocent victim” of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control. They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, “Intelligence.” Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!
Rallies in Yemen following the US attacks have brought tens of thousands of people out on to the streets. We have a live blog covering the reaction, and you can read it here:
Judge orders Trump administration to explain if they defied his court order by deporting migrants
Hugo Lowell
Federal judge James Boasberg has scheduled a 4pm hearing for the Trump administration to explain if they defied his order not to deport undocumented immigrants suspected of belonging to a Venezuelan gang.
Planes carrying the migrants arrived in El Salvador after Boasberg’s order, and attorneys for some of those deported have argued that it appears the administration willingly defied his instruction that they turn back or refrain from departing the United States. Top administration officials said they disagreed with Boasberg’s order, with some reportedly arguing that it did not apply to the aircraft because they were in international airspace when it was handed down.
Russian asylum seekers were once allowed to remain temporarily in the United States while their case was being considered. That’s no longer the case, the Guardian’s Sofia Sorochinskaia reports:
For most of the four years of Joe Biden was in office, citizens of Russia and other post-Soviet states seeking asylum in the US were generally released into the country while they awaited hearings on their claim in immigration court.
But since last summer, many have been detained upon entering the US, and some of them have been held for more than a year, lawyers, activists and detainees say. Some children have been separated from their parents.
“My Russian clients tell me, ‘Now our prison is 80% Russian, the remaining 20% are from rotating nationalities who stay for a while,’” said immigration attorney Julia Nikolaev, who has been advocating for detainees’ rights alongside representatives of the Russian opposition. “Only Russians and a few other post-Soviet nationals remain in detention until their final hearings.”
Alexei Demin, a 62-year-old former naval officer from Moscow, was detained in July of last year.
In the last 20 years, Demin rarely missed an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in the Russian capital. He had become concerned almost immediately after Putin, a former KGB agent, rose to power, he said. For years, he criticized Putin’s regime on Facebook, and he was detained twice at protests. Still, he never imagined that he would end up fleeing his homeland for fear that Putin’s regime would imprison him. Or that he would end up imprisoned in the US.
Politico has more details about Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) rationale for deporting Rasha Alawieh, a doctor and kidney specialist who was sent to Lebanon despite having a valid US visa.
CBP agents at Boston Logan international airport say Alawieh was found with images of Hezbollah leaders, and acknowledged attending the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Alawieh’s case raised concern because it appeared she was deported in violation of a court order that required a judge be given notice before she was removed from the country.
Here’s more:
Federal authorities say they deported a Lebanese doctor holding an American visa last week after finding “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures in the deleted items folder of her cell phone.
Rasha Alawieh, a physician specializing in kidney transplants and professor at Brown University, also told Customs and Border Protection agents that while visiting Lebanon last month she attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and supported him “from a religious perspective” but not a political one.
“CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady wrote in a filing to the court.
The claims in court filings submitted Monday by Justice Department lawyers are the first public explanation of why Alawieh, 34, was deported Friday despite holding a U.S. visa typically issued to foreigners with special skills for a job that an employer claims difficulty finding American candidates to fill.
The assertions about Alawieh’s affinity for Hezbollah came shortly before a federal judge was scheduled to hold a hearing Monday on whether the government defied an order he issued Friday requiring that she not be deported without advance notice to the court. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin postponed the hearing Monday morning just before it was to begin. He gave the government another week to submit further information about what happened with Alawieh.
CBP would never intentionally defy a court order, the government said.
CBP official John Wallace said in a sworn declaration filed with the court that CBP officials at Boston’s Logan Airport hadn’t received formal notification of the court order through official channels before Alawieh was put on an Air France flight bound for Paris Friday night.
Rights groups say ‘extremely concerned’ government may have violated court order in deporting Venezuelans
Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union, who are representing a group of Venezuelans that Donald Trump ordered deported under the Alien Enemies Act, told a federal judge they fear that the government violated his order to keep the migrants in the country while he weighs their case.
In a motion filed today, the two rights groups point to evidence that the government allowed planes carrying alleged gang members, most of whom are from Venezuela, to depart for or continue flying to Central American countries even after federal judge James Boasberg said they should turn back.
“Plaintiffs remain extremely concerned that, regardless of which time is used, the government may have violated the Court’s command,” attorneys for the two groups wrote. They continued:
The government states that “some gang members subject to removal under the Proclamation had already been removed from United States territory under the Proclamation before the issuance of this Court’s second order … That phrasing strongly suggests that the government has chosen to treat this Court’s Order as applying only to individuals still on U.S. soil or on flights that had yet to clear U.S. airspace as of 7:26pm (the time of the written order). If that is how the government proceeded, it was a blatant violation of the Court’s Order.
Boasberg is expected to this morning further consider the case in Washington DC federal court.
A major legal showdown is brewing over Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members, most of whom are from Venezuela. The law, among the oldest in the United States, has not been used since the second world war, but Trump has argued it is necessary and likened stopping the flow of undocumented immigrants to fighting a war. Here’s more about the act, from the Associated Press:
Donald Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war, granting himself sweeping powers under a centuries-old law to deport people associated with a Venezuelan gang. Hours later, a federal judge halted deportations under the US president’s order.
The act is a sweeping wartime authority that allows noncitizens to be deported without being given the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge.
Trump’s proclamation on Saturday identified Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang as an invading force. US district judge James Boasberg blocked anyone from being deported under the proclamation for two weeks and scheduled a Friday hearing to consider arguments.
The justice department says that Rasha Alawieh, a kidney specialist working in Rhode Island who was deported to Lebanon despite having a US visa, had “sympathetic” photos and videos of Hezbollah leaders on her phone, according to Politico.
Alawieh’s deportation raised concerns because a judge had required 48 hours’ notice before being sent out of the country, and because she was detained despite having a valid visa and a job in the United States. Her lawyers have alleged that Customs and Border Protection ignored that order, and Massachusetts federal judge Leo Sorokin is expected to consider the matter this morning.
Donald Trump was also asked about his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members, most of whom are from Venezuela.
A reporter noted that the act had only previously been used during wartime, prompting the president to argue that the United States was at war right now.
“This is a time of war,” Trump said, before repeating his argument that Joe Biden purposefully allowed undocumented immigrants into the country.
“It’s an invasion, and these are criminals, many, many criminals.”
In addition to his hardline enforcement of immigration laws, Donald Trump told reporters that he expects the supreme court to weigh in on his attempt to fire all probationary federal employees.
Last week, two federal judges ruled that many of those let go should be reinstated.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, absolutely. It’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States that was elected by close to 80 million votes,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, referring to one of two rulings.
“It’s a very dangerous thing for our country. I would expect that we’re going to have to get a decision from the supreme court.”
A look back at the court’s order:
Trump attacks Biden’s pardon of January 6 committee members
Donald Trump, once again posting on social media in the early morning hours, said Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons of lawmakers on the January 6 committee are invalid because the outgoing president did not sign them personally.
Trump said Biden signed the order by Autopen, as presidents often do, but in this case, it’s invalid. From his Truth Social account:
The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!
The pardons of the House lawmakers who investigated the attack on the Capitol were one of Biden’s final actions in office, and came after months of threats from Trump to investigate them:
Donald Trump may be all in on tariffs, but the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reports that many Americans are not, including a sizable number of Republicans:
Americans are increasingly concerned about Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul the US economy with sweeping tariffs on foreign goods, according to an exclusive poll for the Guardian, despite the US president’s efforts to downplay the risks of his strategy.
“Have no fear, we will WIN everything!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, claiming that tariffs were already “pouring money” into the country.
But fears are growing. When given a list of issues including inflation, healthcare and immigration, 72% of Americans said they are concerned about tariffs.
The survey was conducted by the Harris Poll in early March. When it conducted the same survey in mid-January, 61% of those polled said tariffs were a concern.
A lot has changed since then. Since returning to the White House, Trump has pushed for tariffs against many of the US’s key trading partners. He tacked on an extra 20% tariff on Chinese imports and hiked tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
White House set for legal showdowns over Trump’s controversial deportation orders
The Trump administration is facing a number of legal battles after controversial deportations led to court orders and accusations of defying the judiciary.
In Massachusetts this morning, judge Leo Sorokin will demand answers regarding the deportation of Dr Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old Rhode Island-based kidney specialist.
Alawieh, who was reportedly holding a valid US visa, was sent back to Lebanon on Friday, despite a court order requiring 48 hours’ notice before any deportation. Her legal team claims Customs and Border Protection wilfully ignored the judge’s directive, Politico reported.
Judge Sorokin, who issued the temporary order on Thursday, has asked for an explanation in today’s hearing, calling the allegations of contempt “serious”. Alawieh’s attorneys have provided a detailed timeline supporting their claims, which could lead to further legal repercussions.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, a federal judge has accused the White House of disregarding his order to halt the deportation of two planeloads of Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison.
The deportations are part of Trump’s wider crackdown on foreign nationals, which included invoking the rarely used Alien Enemies Act, a move last implemented as part of wartime measures.
Despite the court order, the White House insisted that the flights had already left US airspace by the time it was issued, a position that legal experts are querying. Both cases now appear headed for the supreme court.
Maya Yang
The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.
On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.
Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by then president Richard Nixon in 1970, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base.
According to the West Virginia military hall of fame, Rogers was the highest-ranking African American to receive the medal. After his death in 1990, Rogers’s remains were buried at the Arlington national cemetery in Washington DC, and in 1999 a bridge in Fayette county, where Rogers was born, was renamed the Charles C Rogers Bridge.
Trump says no exemptions on US steel and aluminum tariffs
President Donald Trump said he has no intention of creating exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs and said reciprocal and sectoral tariffs will be imposed on 2 April.
Last month, Trump raised tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum to a flat 25%, without exemptions or exceptions, in a move that was designed to help US industry while contributing to an escalating trade war, Reuters reported.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said reciprocal duties on US trading partners would come alongside auto duties.
“In certain cases, both,” Trump said when asked if he would be imposing sectoral and reciprocal tariffs on 2 April. “They charge us, and we charge them. Then, in addition to that, on autos, on steel, on aluminum, we’re going to have some additional,” he said.
Trump has said previously that he would impose reciprocal tariffs on US friends and foes alike at the beginning of April.
US deports 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court ruling to halt flights
Edward Helmore
The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday after Donald Trump controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.
The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.
The White House said the judge had no authority to block the deportation.
“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
She said the court had “no lawful basis”.
The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.
“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.
Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.
Trump to attend Kennedy Center for board meeting after Vance booed by audience
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with news that president Donald Trump will visit the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday after ousting its leadership, taking over as chair, and seeking to put his stamp on the renowned arts institution.
Trump will preside over a Kennedy Center board meeting in his new role on Monday afternoon, Reuters reported.
“We have to straighten it out,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One after spending the weekend in Florida, referring to an arts organization that has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades.
Last month Trump became chair of the Kennedy Center and fired its longtime president, Deborah Rutter. He installed his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as interim president.
Vice-president JD Vance and his wife, Usha, who is now a member of the board, attended a recent performance at the Kennedy Center. After they entered the theater, the crowd booed.
In other news:
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President Donald Trump has said he has no intention of creating exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs and said reciprocal and sectoral tariffs will be imposed on 2 April. Last month, Trump raised tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum to a flat 25%, without exemptions or exceptions, in a move that was designed to help US industry while contributing to an escalating trade war, Reuters reported. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said reciprocal duties on US trading partners would come alongside auto duties.
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As Trump and Putin prepare to speak, there have been concerns that the settlement being pushed for by the Trump administration would look a lot like an outright Russian victory, at the expense of Ukraine and its allies in Europe. Trump and Putin last week set off further alarm bells in Kyiv by exchanging friendly words, as the new US administration cosies up to Moscow while attacking Ukraine with threatening language and the withdrawal of some military support.
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For weeks, Donald Trump and Republicans have insisted that social security, Medicaid or Medicare would not “be touched”. Now Musk has suggested the programs would be a primary target.
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The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address. On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.
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Federal employees in a little-known office dedicated to tech and consulting services were at work on the afternoon of 3 February when Elon Musk tweeted about their agency for the first time. “That group has been deleted,” Musk wrote.
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Trump’s administration is being accused by activists of a quid pro quo as it attempts to fast-track a controversial fossil fuel pipeline proposal in Michigan that would in part be built by a donor with deep financial ties to the president.
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Trump’s second term is more direct, determined and intentional, and includes the cultural equivalent of precision airstrikes against the mostly liberal residents of Washington DC, the Guardian’s David Smith writes.
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Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war, granting himself sweeping powers under a centuries-old law to deport people associated with a Venezuelan gang. Hours later, a federal judge halted deportations under the US president’s order. What is the Alien Enemies Act and can Trump use it to deport gang members?
