US Supreme Court blocks Trump bid to resume Venezuelan deportations
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court blocked a bid by the Trump administration to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members using an obscure wartime law, saying they were not being given enough time to legally contest their removal.
The 7-2 decision by the top court is another setback to President Donald Trump's attempts to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua gang members using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
Trump, who campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, reacted angrily to the court order.
"THE SUPREME COURT WON'T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!" he posted on Truth Social.
Trump invoked the AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II, in March to deport a first group of alleged Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process.
Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not Tren de Aragua members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court intervened on April 19 to temporarily block further deportations of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, saying they must be afforded due process.
In Friday's unsigned order, the court paused plans to deport another group of detainees held in Texas, saying they were not being given enough time to mount a meaningful legal challenge to their removal.
"Notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster," the justices said.
Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The justices also noted that a Salvadoran man had been deported to El Salvador "in error" along with the alleged Tren de Aragua members in March and the Trump administration has claimed "it is unable to provide for (his) return."
The justices stressed they were not deciding whether Trump could legally use the AEA to deport undocumented migrants, and they ordered a lower court to "expeditiously" examine the question.
"To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given," they said.
"We did not on April 19 -- and do not now -- address the underlying merits of the parties' claims regarding the legality of removals under the AEA.
"We recognise the significance of the Government's national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution," they said.
Three federal district court judges have ruled that Trump's use of the AEA to carry out deportations was unconstitutional while one district court judge, a Trump appointee, decided that it was permissible.
In invoking the AEA, Trump said Tren de Aragua was engaged in "hostile actions" and "threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
41 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
Nato wants Zelenskyy's presence at summit, but does not want to anger Trump
Officials organising a Nato summit in The Hague this month are expected to keep it short, restrict discussion of Ukraine and choreograph meetings so that Volodymyr Zelenskyy can somehow be in town without provoking Donald Trump. Though the Ukrainian president is widely expected to attend the summit in some form, Nato has yet to confirm whether he is actually invited. Diplomats say he may attend a pre-summit dinner but be kept away from the main summit meeting. Whether the brief summit statement will even identify Russia as a threat or express support for Ukraine is still up in the air. The careful steps are all being taken to avoid angering Washington, much less provoking any repeat of February's White House blow-up between Trump and Zelenskyy that almost torpedoed the international coalition supporting Kyiv. Nato's European members, who see Russia as an existential threat and Nato as the principal means of countering it, want to signal their continued strong support for Ukraine. But they are also desperate to avoid upsetting a volatile Trump, who stunned them at a summit seven years ago by threatening to quit the alliance altogether. If Zelenskyy does not attend in some form, it would be "at least a PR disaster", acknowledged a senior Nato diplomat. Since Russia's invasion three years ago, Zelenskyy has regularly attended Nato summits as the guest of honour, where alliance members pledged billions in weapons and condemned Russia for an illegal war of conquest. Leaders repeatedly promised that Ukraine would one day join Nato. But since Washington's shift under Trump towards partly accepting Russia's justifications for the war and disparaging Zelenskyy, the 32-member alliance no longer speaks with a single voice about Europe's deadliest conflict since World War 2. Trump has taken Ukraine's Nato membership off the table, unilaterally granting Moscow one of its main demands. After dressing down Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February, Trump cut vital US military and intelligence support for Ukraine for days. Since then, the two men have publicly mended fences but mostly spoken remotely, with Zelenskyy twice phoning the White House on speakerphone while surrounded by four friendly Europeans — Britain's Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Friedrich Merz and Poland's Donald Tusk. Trump is expected to come away from The Hague with a big diplomatic victory as Nato members heed his longstanding complaints that they do not spend enough on defence and agree a much higher target. They are expected to boost their goal for traditional military spending to 3.5 per cent of economic output from 2.0 per cent. A further pledge to spend 1.5 per cent on related expenses such as infrastructure and cyberdefence would raise the total to 5.0 per cent demanded by Trump. But the summit itself and its accompanying written statement are expected to be unusually short, minimising the chances of flare-ups or disagreements. A pledge to develop recommendations for a new Russia strategy has been kicked into the long grass. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy may have to be content with an invitation to a pre-summit dinner, hosted by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, diplomats say. Unlike at Nato's previous two annual summits, the leaders do not plan to hold a formal meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, the official venue for talks between the alliance and Kyiv. On Wednesday, Nato boss Mark Rutte said he had invited Ukraine to the summit, but sidestepped a question on whether the invitation included Zelenskyy himself. Some European countries are still willing to say in public that they hope to see Zelenskyy invited as the head of the Ukrainian delegation. Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said he would like to see a "delegation led by President Zelenskyy". Asked about an invitation for Zelenskyy, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said "I, for my part, strongly welcome the invitation" without giving further details. But diplomats have tried to play down the importance of the formal status of Zelenskyy's role. A senior European diplomat said, "We should not get stuck on 'NUC or no NUC'. If he comes to the leaders' dinner, that would be the minimum".
New Straits Times
an hour ago
- New Straits Times
China's rare earth dominance reshapes trade war battlefield
China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to wea-ponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths, capped by Thursday's telephone call between US and Chinese leaders Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for trade war. Industry executives and analysts say while China is showing signs of approving more exports of the key elements, it will not dismantle its new system. Modelled on the United States' own, Beijing's export licence system gives it unprecedented insight into supplier chokepoints in areas ranging from motors for electric vehicles to flight-control systems for guided missiles. "China originally took inspiration for these export control methods from the comprehensive US sanctions regime," said Zhu Junwei, a scholar at the Grandview Institution, a Beijing-based think tank focused on international relations. "China has been trying to build its own export control systems since then, to be used as a last resort." After Thursday's call, Trump said both leaders had been "straightening out some of the points, having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things". He did not say whether China committed to speeding up licences for exports of rare earth magnets, after Washington curbed exports of chip design software and jet engines to Beijing in response to its perceived slow-rolling on licences. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in EV motors. In April, it added some of the most sophisticated types to an export control list in its trade war with the US, forcing all exporters to apply to Beijing for licences. That put a once-obscure department of China's commerce ministry, with a staff of about 60, in charge of a chokepoint for global manufacturing. Several European auto suppliers shut down production lines last week after running out of supplies. While China's April curbs coincided with a broader package of retaliation against Washington's tariffs, the measures apply globally. "Beijing has a degree of plausible deniability — no one can prove China is doing this on purpose," said Noah Barkin, senior adviser at Rhodium Group, a China-focused US think tank. "But the rate of approvals is a pretty clear signal that China is sending a message, exerting pressure to prevent trade negotiations with the US leading to additional technology control." Even if the pace of export approvals quickens as Trump suggested, the new system gives Beijing unprecedented glimpses of how companies in a supply chain deploy the rare earths it processes, European and US executives have warned. Other governments are denied that insight because of the complexity of supply chain operations. For example, hundreds of Japanese suppliers are believed to need China to approve export licences for rare earth magnets in coming weeks to avert production disruptions, said a person who has lobbied on their behalf with Beijing. "It's sharpening China's scal-pel," said a US-based executive at a company seeking to piece together an alternative supply chain.. As early as 1992, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was quoted as saying, "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths". Beijing's landmark 2020 Export Control Law broadened curbs to cover any items affecting national security — from critical goods and materials to technology and data. China has since built its own sanctions power while pouring the equivalent of billions of dollars into developing work-arounds in response to US policies. In 2022, the US put sweeping curbs on sales of advanced semiconductor chips and tools to China over concerns the technology could advance Beijing's military power. But the move failed to halt China's development of advanced chips and artificial intelligence, analysts have said. Beijing punched back a year later by introducing export licences for gallium and germanium, and some graphite products. Exports to the US of the two critical minerals, along with germanium, were banned last December. In February, China restricted exports of five more metals key to the defence and clean energy industries.
Malay Mail
3 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Reality TV stars, ex-lawmakers among beneficiaries of Trump's questionable pardons
WASHINGTON, June 8 — Reality TV stars. Former lawmakers. A sheriff. A nursing home executive. A drug kingpin. What do they have in common? They are among the Americans convicted of crimes who have received pardons from President Donald Trump since he took office in January. And while US presidents have doled out questionable pardons in the past, Trump is doing so 'in a bigger, more aggressive way with sort of no sense of shame,' said Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. 'The pardon power has always been a little bit problematic because it's this completely unconstrained power that the president has,' Roosevelt told AFP. 'Most presidents have issued at least some pardons where people look at them and they say: 'This seems to be self-serving' or 'This seems to be corrupt in some way.'' But Trump is doling out pardons 'that look like they're almost quid pro quo for financial donations,' Roosevelt said. Among those receiving a pardon was Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive convicted of tax crimes and whose mother attended a US$1-million-per-plate fund-raising dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in April. Other beneficiaries of Trump pardons include reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving lengthy prison sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion. Their daughter, Savannah, is a prominent Trump supporter and gave a speech at last year's Republican National Convention. More than half a dozen former Republican lawmakers convicted of various crimes have also received pardons along with a Virginia sheriff sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking US$75,000 in bribes. On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 as they sought to prevent congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. The next day, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for running the 'Silk Road' online marketplace that facilitated millions of dollars of drug sales. 'Just another deal' Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said Trump is not the first president to be accused of 'allowing improper factors to influence their pardon decisions.' Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton's pardon of a commodities trader whose wife was a major Democratic donor and Biden's pardon of his son, Hunter, and other family members all drew some criticism. '(But) Trump is in a class by himself in both scope and shamelessness,' McQuade said in a Bloomberg opinion column. 'To him, pardons are just another deal. 'As long as a defendant can provide something of value in return, no crime seems too serious,' she said. Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, in a letter to Ed Martin, Trump's pardon attorney at the Justice Department, asked what criteria are being used to recommend pardons. 'It at least appears that you are using the Office of the Pardon Attorney to dole out pardons as favors to the President's loyal political followers and most generous donors,' Raskin wrote. Martin for his part has made no secret of the partisan nature of the pardons recommended by his office. 'No MAGA left behind,' Martin said on X after the pardon of the bribe-taking Virginia sheriff, a reference to Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan. Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor, said Trump's 'pardon spree' opens up a 'menacing new frontier of presidential power' that he calls 'patronage pardoning.' By reducing the penalty for misconduct, Trump is making a 'public commitment to protect and reward loyalism, however criminal,' Kovarsky said in a New York Times opinion piece. — AFP
