update - African migrants held in straightjackets and shackles for 16 hour deportation flight and fed bread and water

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It's tomato season and Lidia is harvesting on farms in California's Central Valley.

She is also anxious. Attention from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could upend her life more than 23 years after she illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenager.

“The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers,” said Lidia, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only her first name be used because of her fears of deportation. “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”



As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Donald Trump’s stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation's labor force.

More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.

Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.



The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.

“It’s unclear how much of the decline we’ve seen since January is due to voluntary departures to pursue other opportunities or avoid deportation, removals, underreporting or other technical issues,” Kramer said. “However, we don’t believe that the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn’t real.”




Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally. He has said he is focusing deportation efforts on “dangerous criminals,” but most people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions. At the same time, the number of illegal border crossings has plunged under his policies.

Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said immigrants normally contribute at least 50% of job growth in the U.S.

“The influx across the border from what we can tell is essentially stopped, and that’s where we were getting millions and millions of migrants over the last four years,” she said. “That has had a huge impact on the ability to create jobs.”



FILE - Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, speaks at a news conference at Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, Calif., April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)© The Associated Press
'Crops did go to waste’

Just across the border from Mexico in McAllen, Texas, corn and cotton fields are about ready for harvesting. Elizabeth Rodriguez worries there won’t be enough workers available for the gins and other machinery once the fields are cleared.

Immigration enforcement actions at farms, businesses and construction sites brought everything to a standstill, said Rodriguez, director of farmworker advocacy for the National Farmworker Ministry.




“In May, during the peak of our watermelon and cantaloupe season, it delayed it. A lot of crops did go to waste,” she said.

In Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles, Lisa Tate manages her family business that grows citrus fruits, avocados and coffee on eight ranches and 800 acres (323 hectares).

Most of the men and women who work their farms are contractor-provided day laborers. There were days earlier this year when crews would be smaller. Tate is hesitant to place that blame on immigration policies. But the fear of ICE raids spread quickly.

Dozens of area farmworkers were arrested late this spring.

“People were being taken out of laundromats, off the side of the road,” Tate said.

Lidia, the farmworker who spoke to the AP through an interpreter, said her biggest fear is being sent back to Mexico. Now 36, she is married with three school-age children who were born here.


“I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring my kids," said Lidia. "I’m also very concerned I’d have to start from zero. My whole life has been in the United States.”

From construction to health care

Construction sites in and around McAllen also “are completely dead,” Rodriguez said.

“We have a large labor force that is undocumented,” she said. “We’ve seen ICE particularly targeting construction sites and attempting to target mechanic and repair shops."

The number of construction jobs are down in about half of U.S. metropolitan areas, according to an Associated General Contractors of America analysis of government employment data. The largest loss of 7,200 jobs was in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California, area. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area lost 6,200 jobs.


“Construction employment has stalled or retreated in many areas for a variety of reasons,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “But contractors report they would hire more people if only they could find more qualified and willing workers and tougher immigration enforcement wasn’t disrupting labor supplies.”


Kramer, with Pew, also warns about the potential impact on health care. She says immigrants make up about 43% of home health care aides.

The Service Employees International Union represents about 2 million workers in health care, the public sector and property services. An estimated half of long-term care workers who are members of SEIU 2015 in California are immigrants, said Arnulfo De La Cruz, the local's president.

“What’s going to happen when millions of Americans can no longer find a home care provider?" De La Cruz said. “What happens when immigrants aren’t in the field to pick our crops? Who’s going to staff our hospitals and nursing homes?” ___ An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the name of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The name is not Immigration Control and Enforcement.

Corey Williams, The Associated Press

1.2 million immigrants are gone from the US labor force under Trump, preliminary data shows

 

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A federal judge in California has found that Donald Trump and administration officials violated the law by deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests against his anti-immigration agenda.

The president’s troop deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits “the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law,” according to Tuesday’s ruling from District Judge Charles Breyer.




Nearly 140 years later, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deployed the National Guard and a cadre of U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, “ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” Breyer wrote.

“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence. Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law,” he added.

Following a brief bench trial last month, the judge determined that the administration illegally and “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”

“In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote.




The judge’s order — in the face of Trump’s plans for what Breyer called “a national police force with the president as its chief” — further blocks the administration from sending troops into the state.

The Trump administration is blocked from “deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops heretofore deployed in California, to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants,” according to the ruling.

Breyer’s order is paused until September 12, giving the Trump administration time to appeal.

The Independent has requested comment from the White House and Defense Department.



District Judge Charles Breyer warned against Trump ‘creating a national police force with the president as its chief’ in a ruling that blocks the administration from sending any troops into California following a lawsuit from Governor Gavin Newsom (Getty Images)
A series of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the Los Angeles area in June sparked a wave of demonstrations, prompting Trump to deploy the National Guard and hundreds of Marines.

The administration sent in roughly 5,000 National Guard soldiers and Marines to the Los Angeles area, assisting with more than 170 law enforcement operations carried out by federal agencies, according to the Department of Defense.



The Pentagon has ended most of those operations, but hundreds of National Guard members remain active in southern California.

Despite that relatively smaller footprint, “they have already been improperly trained as to what activities they can and cannot engage in,” and “Trump’s recent executive orders and public statements regarding the National Guard raise serious concerns” as to whether he intends to continue violating the law, Breyer wrote.

Trump had federalized the normally state-authorized National Guard, going above the command and objections of Governor Gavin Newsom and state officials. Those troops still have only a limited mission in supporting federal law enforcement agents and federal buildings at the center of protests against the administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Democratic officials and civil rights groups feared the president is testing the limits of his authority to send active-duty military into American streets — and violating service members’ commitments to stay out of domestic politics.


Newsom then sued the administration, teeing up a legal battle between the Democratic governor and an administration that has since deployed National Guard into the streets of Washington, D.C., and is imminently prepared to enter other Democratic cities with large minority populations.

A federal appeals court had temporarily blocked an earlier ruling from Breyer, paving the way for a non-jury trial to investigate the basis and legal authority behind Trump sending in the troops.

“DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” Newsom wrote on X after Tuesday’s ruling.

“The courts agree — his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL,” he added.

Trump illegally sent National Guard to Los Angeles, federal judge rules

 

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Judge William Orrick has extended a preliminary injunction regarding the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal grants from sanctuary jurisdictions, allowing continued funding for plaintiffs during ongoing litigation. The case, led by San Francisco and joined by multiple cities and counties, argues that tying grants to immigration enforcement poses an unconstitutional coercive threat. Plaintiffs claimed they rely on the federal funds for essential services.





Immigration attorney Zachary Restuccia stated, “I definitely agree with the ruling and the constitutionality of it.”

The case has added multiple cities and counties as plaintiffs. Orrick wrote that the executive orders and related actions pose an unconstitutional coercive threat to funding.

Orrick stated, “The new plaintiffs have each alleged similar reliance on federal funding as the Cities and Counties and filed declarations showing similar harms to community health, welfare and social services and to their budgetary processes that depend on the regularly authorized grants of federal funding for a variety of critical needs.”

Plaintiffs warned that cuts or conditions tied to immigration cooperation could cause harm. The administration is aiming to boost local immigration enforcement via grant conditions.

Democratic officials have pursued related suits against funding conditions tied to immigration enforcement. A Rhode Island case has claimed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) linked Victims of Crime Act grants to cooperation requirements.




Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said, “Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.” She added, “We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest major city in the country and a leading example of why cities around the country make this country safer, healthier, and more prosperous for all Americans.”

Clinton-Appointed Judge Halts Trump Policy

 

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Donald Trump thinks he can control all aspects of American life, including free market interest rates. The Fed chair, and the global economy, disagree.

If the Fed were to fall under the influence of an elected official seeking to tie interest rates to his political agenda, economic consequences would be dire: Investors would face heightened market volatility due to uncertainty and artificially manipulated interest rates, causing confidence in US assets to drop.




In his second term, Trump has made repeated threats to remove officials from the Federal Reserve, including Fed chair Jerome Powell and governor Lisa Cook. Trump is unhappy that the Fed has not yet lowered interest rates to mask economic fallout from his ill-conceived tariffs, which have caused unprecedented levels of volatility and uncertainty.

Trump’s threats have already jeopardized the Fed’s goals, destabilized global markets and eroded trust in US fiscal autonomy. AInvest reports early market responses to his threats and stresses in sum that “the Fed’s independence remains critical to global stability, as political interference risks undermining dollar dominance and triggering cascading effects on bond yields and equity valuations.”

Usurping the Fed’s role

In his latest attempt to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates, Trump seeks to fire Cook, whose appointment can only be terminated for cause under Section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act, in effect since 1913.



“For cause” in this legal context does not mean whatever Trump wants it to mean. It is statutorily defined as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Trump, no surprise, is trying to remove Cook for allegations falling outside that statutory definition. In response to unsubstantiated allegations from a Trump ally that Cook made false statements on a mortgage application in 2021, before she joined the Federal Reserve, Trump purported to fire her on Aug. 25.

In a letter addressed to Cook, Trump wrote, “In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter … I do not have confidence in your integrity.”

Trump, convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records, whose organization was found guilty on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud, whose “Trump University” defrauded students to the tune of 25 million dollars, and who is illegally enriching himself from the presidency in unprecedented ways, appears blind to irony.




If he succeeds in removing and replacing Cook, Trump will have appointed the majority of the seven-member Board of Governors, giving him direct, improvident, and economically catastrophic influence over their decisions.

Cook says not so fast

Cook is fighting back. In a civil suit filed on Aug. 28, Cook avers that the attempted firing violates her due process rights as well as the Federal Reserve Act. Seeking an emergency injunction to block her firing and confirm her status as a member of the Fed’s governing board, Cook’s attorneys pled that, “The President’s effort to terminate a Senate-confirmed Federal Reserve Board member is a broadside attack on the century-old independence of the Federal Reserve System.”

The Supreme Court, despite having granted nearly all of the Trump administration’s 19 emergency appeals on its shadow docket, may finally be poised to tell Trump ‘No’ on this one.


In May, SCOTUS reiterated the Fed’s independence in Wilcox v. Trump, ruling that, “the Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” distinguishing the operational independence of the Fed from that of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and other quasi-independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

Although the Roberts court often limited the powers of the executive under the Biden administration, it has done a 180 for Trump. The Republican majority now embraces the unitary executive theory on steroids, vesting an unstable president with broad Article II authority over the entire executive branch. They have let Trump ignore agency expertise, eliminate agencies altogether, and remove agency staff and directors without cause.


But in Wilcox, they bent over backward to protect the independence of the Fed, distinguishing it from other federal agencies now subject to Trump’s ruinous fiat and whim.

The law is not what Trump says it is

If Trump is allowed to go on a fishing expedition to discover infractions in personal life that he can then use to terminate employees whose terms are statutorily protected, regardless of whether those infractions have any bearing on their performance, then there is no such thing as “for cause” termination restrictions. This would suit delusional Trump, who claims Americans yearn for a dictator, just fine. But it would not serve Americans or the economy.

It is fairly obvious that short-term political interests of a president often diverge from sound long-term fiscal policy. It is also fairly obvious that Trump, who still doesn’t understand how tariffs work, is economically illiterate. Trump favors lower interest rates today to support the appearance of economic strength, because he doesn’t understand the long term economic implications.


Only an independent Fed can prevent administrations from using monetary policy for self-serving political ends in other ways, like simply printing more money to finance debt. If left unchecked, like his tariffs, Trump’s short-sighted and self-serving economic impulses could lead to total economic collapse. They could also lead to the collapse of the US dollar, which may explain Trump’s bitcoin obsession.

Even for a Trump-stacked MAGA court willing to let a criminal president run roughshod over civil liberties, the environment, education, science, and healthcare, letting him kill the US dollar may be a bridge too far.

The last straw for the Supreme Court could spell trouble for Trump | Opinion

 

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President Donald Trump is vowing to take his tariff case to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court ruled his sweeping scheme was illegal — but according to New York-based attorney John Polonis, the president shouldn't bank on the 6-3 Republican judicial body to give their stamp of approval, either.




Polonis laid out why he believes the justices are likely to uphold the appeals court's ruling in a lengthy post to Threads on Monday.

The appeals court, Polonis explained, had solid reasoning when it decided 7-4 that Trump cannot use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to set new tariffs on whatever goods he wants.


"The appellate court held that the Constitution vests 'The core Congressional power to impose taxes such as tariffs ... exclusively in the legislative branch.' This is what I have argued from the start and why I've never understood Trump's strategy," wrote Polonis. "Notably, the IEEPA is an emergency law that was designed to impose economic sanctions in response to threats against the U.S.As the court noted — it makes no mention of tariffs. There's no indication Congress intended to transfer any of its tariff power to the executive."




A section of the act mentions "regulation" and "importation" — but, said Polonis, "the court said that the phrase where they appear 'to include imposing these tariffs is ‘a wafer-thin reed on which to rest such sweeping power.' And no other President has attempted such a power grab."

Trump has also claimed he has the authority as a matter of national security — but the court didn't see this as a national security matter, Polonis continued, instead being an issue of the power of the purse, which is strictly a power given to Congress.

"The Supreme Court has an important job now. What are the limits on executive power? Is one man above the Constitution? Can Congress abdicate its responsibilities because it's in bed with the President?" Polonis concluded. "It will be very hard for them to overcome the constitutional arguments at the appellate level unless they're willing to further reveal the extent of they're willing to go to protect this President."

'It'll be very hard': Attorney warns Supreme Court likely won't save Trump's key policy

 

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Five men deported by the United States to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison in the African nation for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said Tuesday.

They accused the Trump administration's third-country deportation program of denying their clients due process.




The New York-based Legal Aid Society said that it was representing one of the men, Jamaican national Orville Etoria, and that he had been “inexplicably and illegally” sent to Eswatini when his home country was willing to accept him back.

That contradicted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said when it deported the five men with criminal records that they were being sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them. Jamaica's foreign minister has also said that the Caribbean country didn't refuse to take back deportees.

Etoria was the first of at least 20 deportees sent by the U.S. to various African nations in the last two months to be identified publicly.

Expanding deportation program

The deportations are part of the Trump administration’s expanding third-country program to send migrants to countries in Africa that they have no ties with to get them off U.S. soil.





Since July, the U.S. has deported migrants to South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda, while a fourth African nation, Uganda, says it has agreed to a deal in principle with the U.S. to accept deportees.

Washington has said it wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has been a flashpoint over U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies, to Uganda after he was wrongly deported to his native El Salvador in March.

Etoria served a 25-year prison sentence and was granted parole in 2021, the Legal Aid Society said, but was now being held in Eswatini's main maximum-security prison for an undetermined period of time despite completing that sentence.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department said that he was convicted of murder. The agency posted on X in reference to a New York Times report on Estoria, saying that it “will continue enforcing the law at full speed — without apology.”




It didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The Legal Aid Society said that an Eswatini lawyer acting on behalf of all five men being held in prison there has been repeatedly denied access to them by prison officials since they arrived in the tiny southern African nation bordering South Africa in mid-July.

The other four men are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen.

‘Indefinite detention’

A separate lawyer representing the two men from Laos and Vietnam said that his clients also served their criminal sentences in the U.S. and had “been released into the community.”

"Then, without warning and explanation from either the U.S. or Eswatini governments, they were arbitrarily arrested and sent to a country to which they have never ever been," the lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said in a statement. “They are now being punished indefinitely for a sentence they already served.”


He said that the U.S. government was “orchestrating secretive third-country transfers with no meaningful legal process, resulting in indefinite detention.”

U.S. Homeland Security said those two men had been convicted of charges including child rape and second-degree murder.

A third lawyer, Alma David, said that she represented the two men from Yemen and Cuba who are also being held in the same prison and denied access to lawyers. She said she had been told by the head of the Eswatini prison that only the U.S. Embassy could grant access to the men.

“Since when does the U.S. Embassy have jurisdiction over Eswatini’s national prisons?” she said in a statement, adding the men weren't told a reason for their detention, and "no lawyer has been permitted to visit them.” David said all five were being held at U.S. taxpayers' expense.

Secretive deals


The deportation deals the U.S. has struck in Africa have been largely secretive, and with countries with questionable rights records.

Authorities in South Sudan have given little information on where eight men sent there in early July are being held or what their fate might be. They were also described by U.S. authorities as dangerous criminals from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The five men in Eswatini are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex. It's the same prison where Eswatini, which is ruled by a king as Africa's last absolute monarchy, has imprisoned pro-democracy campaigners amid reports of abuse that includes beatings and the denial of food to inmates.

Eswatini authorities said when the five men arrived that they were being held in solitary confinement.

Another seven migrants were deported by the U.S. to Rwanda in mid-August, Rwandan authorities said. They didn't say where they are being held or give any information on their identities.

The deportations to Rwanda were kept secret at the time and only announced last week.

Lawyers for 5 men deported to an African prison accuse Trump's program of denying them due process

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.

The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys — both military and civilians — to the Justice Department “as soon as practicable,” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the Aug. 27 memo.




The effort comes as the Trump administration more regularly turns to the military as it cracks down on illegal immigration through ramped-up arrests and deportations. Its growing role in the push includes troops patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, National Guard members being sent into U.S. cities to support immigration enforcement efforts, housing people awaiting deportation on military bases and using military aircraft to carry out deportations.

The administration's focus on illegal immigration has added strain to the immigration courts, which were already dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that has ballooned in recent years.

At the same time, more than 100 immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the Trump administration, their union says. In the most recent round of terminations, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.




That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move would double their ranks.

The Justice Department, which oversees the immigration courts, requested the assistance from the Defense Department, according to the memo sent by the Pentagon’s executive secretary to his DOJ counterpart. The military lawyers' duties as immigration judges will initially last no more than 179 days but can be renewed, it said.

A DOJ spokesperson referred questions about the plan to the Defense Department, where officials directed questions to the White House.

A White House official said Tuesday that the administration is looking at a variety of options to help resolve the significant backlog of immigration cases, including hiring additional immigration judges. The official said the matter should be “a priority that everyone — including those waiting for adjudication — can rally around.”




The memo stressed that the additional attorneys are contingent on availability and that mobilizing reserve officers may be necessary. Plus, the document said DOJ would be responsible for ensuring that anyone sent from the Pentagon does not violate the federal prohibition on using the military as domestic law enforcement, known as the Posse Comitatus Act.

The administration faced a setback on its efforts to use troops in unique ways to combat illegal immigration and crime, with a court ruling Tuesday that it “willfully” violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles in early June.

It is not immediately clear what impact shifting that number of military attorneys would have on the armed forces' justice system. The attorneys, called judge advocates, have a range of duties much like civilian lawyers, from carrying out prosecutions, acting as a defense attorney or offering legal advice.


Pentagon officials did immediately offer details on where any of the 600 attorneys will be drawn from and whether they will come from active duty or the reserves.

Cases in immigration court can take years to weave their way to a final determination, with judges and lawyers frequently scheduling final hearings on the merits of a case over a year out.


Pentagon authorizes up to 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges

 

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A divided appeals court in Washington, D.C., dealt the Trump administration a blow in its quest to oust a Democratic Federal Trade commissioner.

Rebecca Slaughter was fired by President Donald Trump in March, alongside fellow Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya. The move was widely viewed as unlawful, as the FTC is meant to be an independent agency and its commissioners have removal protections. A federal judge ruled in July that Slaughter’s firing violated federal law and Supreme Court precedent, and mandated she be reinstated to serve out her full term, which runs through September 2029.




On Tuesday, an appeals court denied the federal government’s request to pause the lower court's order reinstating her. The judges noted Trump fired Slaughter without cause.



"The government now seeks a stay of that decision pending appeal. That motion must be denied. The government has no likelihood of success on appeal given controlling and directly on point Supreme Court precedent," they said.

"To grant a stay would be to defy the Supreme Court's decisions that bind our judgments. That we will not do," the judges added.

Trump dealt another court blow as Dem official ordered reinstated: 'That we will not do'

 

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A federal judge was wrong to block the Trump administration from freezing billions of dollars and terminating contracts for nonprofits to run a “green bank” aimed at financing climate-friendly projects, a divided appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The ruling is a win for the Trump administration that had blasted the program as a waste of taxpayer money and tried to claw back funding.




The groups sued the EPA, its administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, saying they had illegally denied the groups access to funds awarded last year. They wanted access to those funds again, saying the freeze had paralyzed their work and jeopardized their basic operations.

Those arguments have no place in federal court, according to the split D.C appeals court panel.

“In sum, district courts have no jurisdiction to hear claims that the federal government terminated a grant agreement arbitrarily or with impunity. Claims of arbitrary grant termination are essentially contractual,” the majority wrote.

Instead, the divided panel said they should go to federal claims court — a loss for Climate United Fund and other nonprofits who wanted the federal court system to ensure it quickly received its funding.


EPA should not have been blocked from terminating green bank funds, appeals court says

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal grand jurors in the nation's capital have refused to indict two people who were charged separately with threatening to kill President Donald Trump, more evidence of a growing backlash against Trump's law enforcement intervention in Washington, D.C.

It is extraordinarily rare for a grand jury to balk at returning an indictment, but it has happened at least seven times in five cases since Trump last month ordered a surge in patrols by federal agents and troops in the District of Columbia. One of the instances involved the case against a man charged with hurling a sandwich at a federal agent.




The latest example occurred Tuesday, when Justice Department prosecutors told a magistrate judge that a grand jury declined to indict Edward Alexander Dana. He is accused of making a death threat against Trump while in police custody on Aug. 17. Dana also told police that he was intoxicated that night.

Grand jurors also refused to hand up an indictment against Nathalie Rose Jones, who was arrested Aug. 16 in Washington on charges that she made death threats against Trump on social media and during an interview with Secret Service agents. Jones' attorney disclosed the decision in a court filing Monday.

Dana's lawyer, Elizabeth Mullin, said she has never seen anything like this in over 20 years as a public defender in Washington. She said prosecutors are responding to Trump's surge by bringing “weak cases” that don't belong in federal court.




“And the grand juries are seeing through it,” Mullin said. “It's a huge waste in resources.”

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whom Trump appointed to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, said a grand jury’s refusal to indict somebody for threatening to kill the president “is the essence of a politicized jury.”

“The system here is broken on many levels,” Pirro said in a statement. “Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in DC refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics."

Last month, a grand jury refused to indict a government attorney who was facing a felony assault charge for throwing a “sub-style” sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent — a confrontation captured on a viral video.

Three grand juries voted separately against indicting a woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent outside the city’s jail in July, where she was recording video of the transfer of inmates into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.




A grand jury also rejected an indictment against a man who was arrested on an assault charge by a U.S. Park Police officer with the assistance of National Guard members.

Grand jury proceedings are secret, so the reasons for their decisions don't become public. But the string of rebukes has fueled speculation that residents serving on grand juries are using their votes to protest against the White House's surge.

“Grand juries, judges, we will not simply go along with the flow,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said during a hearing last week for a surge-related criminal case.

Dana was arrested on suspicion of damaging a light fixture at a restaurant. An officer was driving Dana to a police station when he threatened to kill Trump, according to a Secret Service agent's affidavit. The officer's body camera captured Dana saying he was “not going to tolerate fascism” and would “protect the Constitution by any means necessary.”


“And that means killing you, officer, killing the president, killing anyone who stands in the way of our Constitution,” he said, according to the affidavit.

Prosecutors said Jones, 50, of Lafayette, Indiana, posted a Aug. 6 message on Facebook that she was “willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.” When Secret Service agents questioned her on Aug. 15, Jones said she hoped to peacefully remove Trump from office but “will kill him out at the compound if I have to,” according to prosecutors. Jones was arrested a day later in Washington, where she joined a protest near the White House.

Petras said Jones repeatedly told Secret Service agents that she had no intent to harm anyone, didn't own any weapons and went to Washington to peacefully protest.

Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press

More rebukes for prosecutors: Grand jurors refuse to indict 2 people accused of threatening Trump

 

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BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the reversal of cuts of more than $2.6 billion in federal funding for Harvard University, delivering a significant victory to the Ivy League school in its battle with the Trump administration.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of White House demands for changes to its governance and policies.




The government had tied the freezes at Harvard to delays in dealing with antisemitism on its campus, but the judge said the federally funded research had little connection to antisemitism. “A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote.

The ruling reverses a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation’s wealthiest university. The administration also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status in a clash watched widely across higher education.

Whether Harvard actually receives the money remains to be seen. If the ruling stands, it promises to revive Harvard’s sprawling research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.




Neither the White House nor Harvard responded immediately to requests for comment.

Beyond the courthouse, the Trump administration and Harvard officials have been discussing a potential agreement that would end investigations and allow the university to regain access to federal funding. President Donald Trump has said he wants Harvard to pay no less than $500 million, but no deal has materialized, even as the administration has struck agreements with Columbia and Brown.

Harvard’s lawsuit accused the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism task force.

The letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. It was meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment on campus.





Harvard President Alan Garber pledged to fight antisemitism but said no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants the same day Harvard rejected the administration’s demands. Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer be eligible for new grants, and weeks later the administration began canceling contracts with Harvard.

As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies began sending letters announcing that the frozen research grants were being terminated under a clause allowing grants to be scrapped if they no longer align with government policies. Harvard has moved to self-fund some of its research but warned it can’t absorb the full cost of the federal cuts.


The judge's order reverses all of Harvard’s federal funding freezes and cuts since April 14, and it bars the government from future cuts that violate Harvard’s constitutional rights or run afoul of federal law.

Burroughs sided with the university’s argument that the cuts amounted to retaliation in violation of its First Amendment rights and that the government put unconstitutional conditions on Harvard’s federal money.

“As pertains to this case, it is important to recognize and remember that if speech can be curtailed in the name of the Jewish people today, then just as easily the speech of the Jews (and anyone else) can be curtailed when the political winds change direction,” the judge wrote.

Burroughs also agreed with Harvard’s claim that the government failed to follow steps prescribed by Congress to cut federal money under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education.


The Trump administration denied the cuts were done in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons.

“It is the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,” it said in court documents.

In a separate lawsuit filed by Harvard, Burroughs previously blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the school from hosting international students. Trump had said the administration would appeal if she ruled for Harvard in the fight over its federal funding.

Judge reverses Trump administration's cuts of billions of dollars to Harvard University

 

[mandrill]

President Donald Trump was blocked by a federal appeals court from using an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants his administration says belong to the criminal gang Tren de Aragua.

Newsweek contacted the White House for comment by email after office hours.




Why It Matters
Trump has, through executive order, invoked the Alien Enemies Act by arguing that there is an invasion of the U.S. by foreign criminal gangs that his administration has now designated as terrorist groups.

The court decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.


What To Know
The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that there was not an "invasion or predatory incursion" by a foreign power as required by the 1798 statute to justify its invocation in the case of this group of migrants.

The Alien Enemies Act is a wartime law passed in 1798 as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts under President John Adams. It grants the U.S. president the authority to detain, restrict or deport foreign nationals from a country that is at war with the United States.




Unlike other provisions in the Alien and Sedition Acts, which expired or were repealed, the Alien Enemies Act remains in effect today.

The act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars: in the War of 1812 and the two World Wars.

On April 19, the Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a number of Venezuelan men in custody using the 1798 law.

The Trump administration unsuccessfully argued that courts cannot second-guess the president's determination that Tren de Aragua was connected to Venezuela's government and represented a danger to the United States, meriting use of the act.

In the majority were U.S. Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Joe Biden appointee. Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented.

"A country encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States," the judges wrote.




In a lengthy dissent, Oldham complained his two colleagues were second-guessing Trump's conduct of foreign affairs and national security, realms where courts usually give the president great deference.

What People Are Saying
Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: "The Trump administration's use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration's view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts."

What Happens Next
The case appears set to return to the Supreme Court in what is shaping up to be a decisive battle over Mr. Trump's ability to use the Alien Enemies Act, the New York Times reported.


Donald Trump suffers big legal blow over migrant deportations

 

[mandrill]

A former Defense Department special counsel and New York University law professor didn't mince words Wednesday evening, accusing the Trump administration of murder in a scathing thread posted to X.

This week, Trump announced a strike on a vessel in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 people on board. He said the ship was believed to be carrying narcotics to the United States.





But that doesn't justify the degree of force the administration used, legal expert Ryan Goodman said.



"I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be 'murder' or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable," wrote Goodman, linking to a more extensive analysis on Just Security by Brian Finucane.

"The author of the expert analysis worked at the State Department under several administrations with these types of use of force issues as his portfolio," Goodman continued. "The best line of argument for the administration might be that the law of armed conflict somehow applies. But if so (and it doesn't), that means the US War Crimes Act applies too, including the prohibition on murder."

Venezuelans react to US strike on boat that Trump said targeted gang


Meanwhile, Goodman said, if the law of armed conflict does not apply, then "DoD has a long-standing view that assassination and murder are part of the customary international human rights law that applies to military action beyond U.S. borders."

Goodman concluded by quoting Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who justified the action by saying that interdicting drug trafficking vessels doesn't work and "what will stop them is if you blow them up."

"These statements by Secretary Rubio make the legal case against the U.S. strike even stronger," he said.


Trump’s strike likely constitutes ‘murder’ under international law: legal expert

 

[mandrill]

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal appeals court panel on Thursday put on hold a lower court judge’s order to end operations indefinitely at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The three-judge panel in Atlanta decided by a 2-1 vote to stay the federal judge’s order pending the outcome of an appeal, saying it was in the public interest. The ruling will allow the facility to continue holding detainees for the time being.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued a preliminary injunction last month ordering operations at the facility to be wound down by the end of October, with detainees transferred to other facilities and equipment and fencing removed.

People take pictures in front of a sign reading "Alligator Alcatraz" as passerby, some opposed, some in support, visit the entrance to an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Collier County, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)© The Associated Press
Williams’ decision was issued in response to a lawsuit brought by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe, who accused the state and federal defendants of not following federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.




“This is a heartbreaking blow to America’s Everglades and every living creature there, but the case isn’t even close to over,” Elise Bennett, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Thursday.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration in late June raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by wetlands to aid President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally. The governor said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after.



Trucks come and go from the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Collier County, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)© The Associated Press
Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.

DeSantis said on social media Thursday, after the appellate panel issued its ruling, that claims that the facility's shutdown were imminent were false.







“We said we would fight that. We said the mission would continue,” DeSantis said. “So Alligator Alcatraz is in fact, like we've always said, open for business.”

The Department of Homeland Security called Thursday's ruling “a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense.”

“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility,” DHS said in a statement. "It has and will always be about open-borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop.”

The state and federal government defendants appealed Williams' ruling, asking that it be put on hold. The state of Florida said in court papers this week that it planned to resume accepting detainees at the facility if the stay was granted.

The federal government claims that it isn’t responsible for the detention center since it hasn’t spent a cent to build or operate the facility, even though Florida is seeking some federal grant money to fund a portion of it. Florida claims that the environmental impact statement required by federal law doesn’t apply to states.




In Thursday's ruling, the majority on the appellate panel largely accepted those arguments, saying Williams erred by assuming statements federal officials had made about reimbursing the state weren't the same as a final decision about funding the facility.

Appeals court panel stops order to wind down operations at 'Alligator Alcatraz' in Everglades

 

[mandrill]

© provided by AlterNet
The New Republic reports President Donald Trump’s administration keeps changing its story to justify an unprecedented military strike on an alleged Venezuelan cartel boat transporting drugs.

Department of Defense officials privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the strike that killed 11 people, according to a Thursday report by the New York Times.




The New Republic reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling reporters the ship was travelling to Trinidad, Tobago, or “some other country in the Caribbean.” But after Trump claimed the ship was on course for the United States, Rubio changed his claim to align with that of the president.



International drug traffickers “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period,” Rubio said Wednesday, according to the New Republic. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”

“Shifting the narrative to center the United States is particularly concerning considering the fact that the Trump administration has yet to produce a legal authority for the use of military force against cartels,” wrote New Republic writer Edith Olmsted.




Trump claimed this week that the eleven crew members were “narco terrorists” that belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the executive branch has labeled a terrorist organization.

But Olmsted said that designation does not serve as a legal basis for a combat strike, and added that the government has “offered no evidence to support its claim that the boat occupants were drug traffickers, despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.”



“The actual details still remain murky beneath the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, and the government has been anything but transparent about the military strike, which may prove to have been illegal,” Olmsted wrote.


'Details still remain murky' as Trump admin struggles to keep new story straight

 

[Valcazar]

© provided by AlterNet
The New Republic reports President Donald Trump’s administration keeps changing its story to justify an unprecedented military strike on an alleged Venezuelan cartel boat transporting drugs.

Department of Defense officials privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the strike that killed 11 people, according to a Thursday report by the New York Times.




The New Republic reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling reporters the ship was travelling to Trinidad, Tobago, or “some other country in the Caribbean.” But after Trump claimed the ship was on course for the United States, Rubio changed his claim to align with that of the president.



International drug traffickers “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period,” Rubio said Wednesday, according to the New Republic. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”

“Shifting the narrative to center the United States is particularly concerning considering the fact that the Trump administration has yet to produce a legal authority for the use of military force against cartels,” wrote New Republic writer Edith Olmsted.




Trump claimed this week that the eleven crew members were “narco terrorists” that belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the executive branch has labeled a terrorist organization.

But Olmsted said that designation does not serve as a legal basis for a combat strike, and added that the government has “offered no evidence to support its claim that the boat occupants were drug traffickers, despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.”



“The actual details still remain murky beneath the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, and the government has been anything but transparent about the military strike, which may prove to have been illegal,” Olmsted wrote.


'Details still remain murky' as Trump admin struggles to keep new story straight

It's pretty clear they did this because they wanted to do it and are trying to come up with some sort of legal justification afterwards.

 

[Frankfooter]

It's pretty clear they did this because they wanted to do it and are trying to come up with some sort of legal justification afterwards.

Definitely.

trump put too many destroyers near Venezuela for it to be about drugs.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1963464928066711700