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Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Judge limits Trump's ability to deport Abrego Garcia after lengthy court battle
Greenbelt, Md. – A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from immediately deporting a Salvadoran migrant at the center of a legal and political maelstrom. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday prohibiting the Trump administration from immediately taking Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia into ICE custody for 72 hours after he is released from federal custody in Nashville, Tennessee. Xinis said earlier this month that she would take action soon, in anticipation of a looming detention hearing for Abrego Garcia in his criminal case. She said she planned to issue the order with sufficient time to block the Trump administration's stated plans to immediately begin the process of deporting Abrego Garcia again upon release, this time to a third country such as Mexico or South Sudan. Xinis's order said the additional time will ensure Abrego can raise any credible fears of removal to a third country, and via "the appropriate channels in the immigration process." She also ordered the government to provide Abrego and his attorneys with "immediate written notice" of plans to transport him to a third country, again with the 72-hour notice period, "so that Abrego Garcia may assert claims of credible fear or seek any other relief available to him under the law and the Constitution." Xinis's order was handed down just three minutes before the judge in Nashville — U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw — issued a separate order on Wednesday, saying that Abrego should be released from criminal custody pending a trial date in January. Judge Crenshaw said in his order that the government failed to provide "any evidence that there is something in Abrego's history at warrants detention." The plans, which Xinis ascertained over the course of a multi-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month, capped an exhausting, 19-week legal saga in the case of Abrego Garcia that spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court, and inspired countless hours of news coverage. Still, it ultimately yielded little in the way of new answers, and Xinis likened the process to "nailing Jell-O to a wall," and "beating a frustrated and dead horse," among other things. "We operate as government of laws," she scolded lawyers for the Trump administration in one of many terse exchanges. "We don't operate as a government of 'take my word for it.'" Xinis had repeatedly floated the notion of a temporary restraining order, or TRO, to ensure certain safeguards were in place to keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody, and appeared to agree with his attorneys that such an order is likely needed to prevent their client from being removed again, without access to counsel or without a chance to appeal his country of removal. "I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to do," Xinis said on more than one occasion, growing visibly frustrated. "I'm deeply concerned that if there's no restraint on you, Abrego will be on another plane to another country," she told the Justice Department, noting pointedly that "that's what you've done in other cases." Those concerns were echoed by Abrego Garcia's attorneys in court last week. They noted the times the Trump administration has appeared to have undercut or misrepresented its position before the court in months past, as Xinis attempted to ascertain the status of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, and what efforts, if any, the Trump administration was making to comply with a court order to facilitate his return. The Trump administration, who reiterated that the case is no longer in her jurisdiction, will almost certainly move to immediately appeal the restraining order to a higher court. The order followed an extraordinary, multi-day evidentiary hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Xinis sparred with Trump administration officials as she attempted to make sense of their remarks and ascertain their next steps as they look to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country as early as Wednesday, July 16. She said she planned to issue the order before that court date, when Abrego could possibly be released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Waverly Crenshaw. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia, meanwhile, asked the court for more time in ICE custody, citing the many countries he might suffer persecution in — and concerns about what legal status he would have in the third country of removal. Without legal status in Mexico, Xinis said, it would likely be a "quick road" to being deported by the country's government to El Salvador, in violation of the withholding of removal order. And in South Sudan, another country DHS is apparently considering, lawyers for Abrego noted the State Department currently has a Level 4 advisory in place discouraging U.S. travel due to violence and armed conflict. Americans who do travel there should "draft a will" beforehand and designate insurance beneficiaries, according to official guidance on the site. In court, Xinis struggled at times to keep her own frustration and her incredulity at bay after months of back-and-forth with Justice Department attorneys. Xinis has presided over Abrego Garcia's civil case since March, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of an existing court order in what Trump administration officials described as an "administrative error." She spent hours pressing Justice Department officials, over the course of three separate hearings, for details on the government's plans for removing Abrego Garcia to a third country — a process she likened to "trying to nail Jell-O to a wall." Xinis on Friday chastised the Justice Department for presenting a DHS witness to testify under oath about ICE's plans to deport Abrego Gaarcia one day earlier, fuming that the official, Thomas Giles, "knew nothing" about his case, and made no effort to ascertain answers — despite his rank as ICE's third-highest enforcement official. The four hours of testimony he provided was "fairly stunning," and "insulting to her intelligence," Xinis said. Ultimately, the court would not allow the "unfettered release" of Abrego Garcia pending release from federal custody on Wednesday in Tennessee without "full-throated assurances" from the Trump administration that it will keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody for a set period of time and locally, Xinis said, to ensure immigration officials do not "spirit him away to Nome, Alaska." The Justice Department, after a short recess, declined to agree, prompting Xinis to proceed with her plans for the TRO. Xinis told the court that ultimately, "much delta" remains between where they ended things in court, and what she is comfortable with, given the government's actions in the past. This was apparent on multiple occasions Friday, when Xinis told lawyers for the Trump administration that she "isn't buying" their arguments or doesn't "have faith" in the statements they made — reflecting an erosion of trust that could prove damaging in the longer-term. The hearings this week capped months of back-and-forth between Xinis and the Trump administration, as she tried, over the course of 17 weeks, to track the status of a single migrant deported erroneously by the Trump administration to El Salvador—and to trace what attempts, if any, they had made facilitate his return to the U.S. Xinis previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered this year, describing the government's submissions as "vague, evasive and incomplete"— and which she said demonstrated "willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations." On Friday, she echoed this view. "You have taken the presumption of regularity and you've destroyed it, in my view," Xinis said.
WIRED
7 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
A Top NASA Official Is Among Thousands of Staff Leaving the Agency
Stephen Clark, Ars Technica Jul 22, 2025 8:00 PM Makenzie Lystrup's departure from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center comes soon after the resignation of the director of JPL. Aerial view of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Courtesy of Bill Hrybyk/NASA You can add another name to the thousands of employees leaving NASA as the Trump administration primes the space agency for a 25 percent budget cut. On Monday, NASA announced that Makenzie Lystrup will leave her post as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, August 1. Lystrup has held the top job at Goddard since April 2023, overseeing a staff of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractor employees and a budget last year of about $4.7 billion. These figures make Goddard the largest of NASA's 10 field centers primarily devoted to scientific research and development of robotic space missions, with a budget and workforce comparable to NASA's human spaceflight centers in Texas, Florida, and Alabama. Officials at Goddard manage the James Webb and Hubble telescopes in space, and Goddard engineers are assembling the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, another flagship observatory scheduled for launch late next year. 'We're grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years, including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers,' Vanessa Wyche, NASA's acting associate administrator, said in a statement. Cynthia Simmons, Goddard's deputy director, will take over as acting chief at the space center. Simmons started work at Goddard as a contract engineer 25 years ago. Lystrup came to NASA from Ball Aerospace, now part of BAE Systems, where she managed the company's work on civilian space projects for NASA and other federal agencies. Before joining Ball Aerospace, Lystrup earned a doctorate in astrophysics from University College London and conducted research as a planetary astronomer. Makenzie Lystrup at a panel discussion with agency center directors at the 2024 Artemis Suppliers Conference in Washington, DC. Courtesy of Joel Kowsky/Nasa Formal Dissent The announcement of Lystrup's departure from Goddard came hours after the release of an open letter to NASA's interim administrator, transportation secretary Sean Duffy, signed by hundreds of current and former agency employees. The letter, titled the 'The Voyager Declaration,' identifies what the signatories call 'recent policies that have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.' 'Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully,' the letter reads. 'Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce. We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources.' The letter is modeled on similar documents of dissent penned by employees protesting cuts and policy changes at the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. 'We urge you not to implement the harmful cuts proposed by this administration, as they are not in the best interest of NASA,' the letter reads. 'We wish to preserve NASA's vital mission as authorized and appropriated by Congress.' The signatories who chose to identify themselves don't include any current senior-level NASA officials, and there's nothing to suggest any link between the letter and Lystrup's departure from Goddard. Writing on the Wall But it's important to note that Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, would suffer outsize impacts from the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts. The White House's budget request for fiscal year 2026 asks Congress for $18.8 billion to fund NASA, about 25 percent below this year's budget. Funding for NASA's science directorate would be cut from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion, a reduction that would force the cancellation of dozens of NASA missions currently in space or undergoing development. Appropriations committees in both houses of Congress advanced spending bills earlier this month that would restore NASA's funding close to this year's budget of nearly $25 billion. The budget bills must still be voted on by the entire House and Senate before going to the White House for President Trump's signature. Makenzie Lystrup was sworn in as a federal employee using Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Courtesy of Keegan Barber/NASA However, lawmakers are concerned the Trump administration might attempt to circumvent any congressional budget and move forward with more lasting cuts to NASA and other federal agencies through a process known as impoundment. This would likely trigger a court fight over the executive branch's authority to refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress. The administration is proceeding with offers to federal civil servants of early retirement, buyouts, and deferred resignation. NASA's chief of staff, a Trump political appointee named Brian Hughes, said in a town hall meeting last month that the agency is operating under the assumption that the White House's budget will become reality. So, the story is far from over. Goddard's work is intertwined with NASA's science budget. Nearly 60 percent of Goddard's funding comes from NASA's astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics, and planetary science accounts—all nested within the agency's science mission directorate. Several NASA facilities operate under Goddard management, including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas. Another NASA facility girding for cutbacks is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a federally funded research center managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL has been the architect of most of NASA's robotic missions exploring the Solar System, such as the Voyager probes, a series of increasingly sophisticated Mars rovers, and most recently, the Europa Clipper mission that left Earth last year on the way to study the enigmatic icy moon of Jupiter. JPL's center director, Laurie Leshin, stepped down June 1 after ordering layoffs of more than 10 percent of the lab's workforce last year, largely due to budget uncertainty over the future of NASA's Mars Sample Return program. The Trump administration's budget proposal calls for canceling the robotic Mars Sample Return program in favor of eventually bringing home rock specimens from the red planet on future human expeditions. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Civility Management Solutions Launches Nationwide Campaign for National Civility Month
Challenging the Culture Debt Ceiling GREENBELT, Md., July 22, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As organizations nationwide continue to grapple with rising workplace tension, burnout, and disengagement, Civility Management Solutions (CivilityMS), a woman- and veteran-owned management services firm based in Greenbelt, Maryland, is launching a nationwide awareness campaign to recognize National Civility Month (August 2025) and offer leaders real solutions to an invisible, expensive problem. The campaign reframes civility not as a soft skill—but as a strategic leadership asset that directly impacts performance, retention, and revenue. According to recent studies, incivility now costs U.S. employers more than $2 billion per day in lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover—a growing "culture debt" that many leaders still overlook. Led by CivilityMS Founder and President Laurie Sayles, the campaign introduces a powerful slate of tools and events, including: The Executive Civility Toolkit – A free, practical resource for executives, HR leaders, and team managers, featuring civility scorecards, pulse surveys, team conversation flashcards, and behavior checklists. National Webinar – "Culture Debt Is Real: Why Civility Is the Business Strategy You're Ignoring" – airing live on LinkedIn Wednesday, August 13, 2025 . Private CEO Roundtable – "Civility Behind Closed Doors: A CEO Roundtable on Culture, Leadership & Accountability" – taking place virtually on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 . Social Media Activation + CEO Civility Pledge – Encouraging C-suite leaders to sign a digital pledge and receive a badge of commitment to respectful, accountable leadership. "Civility is not soft—it's strategic," says Sayles. "It affects contract renewals, team trust, psychological safety, and innovation. When companies treat it like a leadership competency, they see measurable results." CivilityMS has delivered civility-focused solutions to federal agencies, Fortune 500s, nonprofits, and C-suite teams—integrating respect, emotional intelligence, and accountability into the DNA of daily operations. The company's approach is built on the belief that culture is not an HR issue—it's a leadership responsibility. The campaign also features a downloadable infographic outlining the cost of incivility, and a "Campaign in a Box" kit to help organizations activate civility internally throughout August. Registration & Resources:
New York Times
21-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Hundreds of NASA Employees, Past and Present, Sign Letter of Formal Dissent
A public letter from NASA employees on Monday urges leaders of the space agency not to carry out deep cuts sought by the Trump administration. 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement and efficient use of public resources,' the employees wrote in the letter. It is addressed to Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, whom President Trump appointed this month as acting NASA administrator. Cuts to NASA programs have been arbitrary and in defiance of priorities set by Congress, the NASA employees said. 'The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire,' they wrote. NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NASA letter follows similar letters of criticism by federal employees at the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, said he welcomed respectful dissent, but the E.P.A. placed 144 employees who signed that agency's letter on leave. 'We're all scared that we're going to get laid off,' said Monica Gorman, an operations research analyst at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'We're scared of retaliation. We huddle in the bathroom. We go to the bathroom to talk to each other, and look under the stalls to make sure that no one else is there before we talk.' Ms. Gorman is one of 287 current and former NASA employees who signed the letter, although more than half did so anonymously. More than 15,000 people work at the space agency. Prominent scientists outside of NASA, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, also offered their names in support. Read the NASA 'Voyager Declaration' Letter of Dissent Hundreds of current and ex-employees of NASA signed a formal dissent letter protesting the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the agency. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘The Evidence Is Not Credible': Judge Skewers Defiant Trump DOJ In Abrego Garcia Case
GREENBELT, MARYLAND – In a saga that has dragged on for four months that feel like four years, the Trump administration continues to stonewall the judge in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case with dilatory tactics and bad faith responses to her inquiries. Unlike the in-your-face defiance of a few weeks ago, the tactics have become a little more subtle and perhaps less obvious to non-lawyers, but they're not lost on U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. With Abrego Garcia now facing criminal charges in Tennessee, the question is no longer whether the government will return him from wrongful imprisonment in El Salvador but whether it will deport him again if he is released from criminal custody — which could come as soon as next week — while his trial is pending. That's the issue Xinis was being asked to grapple with in what was supposed to be a brief evidentiary hearing that improbably stretched from yesterday afternoon into this morning. Xinis hasn't yet ruled on Abrego Garcia's requests, including that he and his attorneys be given 72 hours notice before he's removed to a third country and that in the meantime he be returned to Maryland, where he lived before he was removed to El Salvador in violation of an immigration judge's order. A ruling from Xinis is imminent. I want to look beyond the ultimate fate of Abrego Garcia to the larger issues the case raises about the rule of law. His case presents profound and still unanswered questions about whether the Trump administration can and will be held to account for brazenly defying court orders, giving the judge the runaround, advancing shifting and contradictory legal arguments, jerking the opposing side around during discovery, and using DOJ lawyers to shield government officials from court scrutiny. While the administration's treatment of Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully detained at CECOT in El Salvador for some 10 weeks, has been abhorrent, its conduct in court has been egregious, too. Let's start with the DOJ lawyers in the case. After the Trump DOJ early on fired career attorney Erez Reuveni for being too candid with the court, most of the heavy lifting in the case has been done by political appointees, itself unusual and unprecedented at this scale and frequency prior to the second Trump presidency. On top of that, DOJ has sent an ever-changing cast of political appointees into court, not just diminishing the quality of the lawyering but making it difficult for the judge to hold them to account for their previous representations and assurances. Across three days of hearings this week, a merry-go-round of DOJ lawyers popped up again. A newly minted DOJ attorney named Bridget O'Hickey arrived at a hearing in the case on Monday and handled about half of the government's argument but didn't enter her appearance in the case until Wednesday. O'Hickey didn't start working at the Justice Department until May, according to her Linkedin profile; the Abrego Garcia case started in March. By Thursday, another new face popped up at the government counsel table. Sarmad M. Khojasteh joined DOJ in April, according to his Linkedin profile, and had had no previous involvement in the Abrego Garcia case, at least not on the record. But he was suddenly lead counsel for the government across two days of hearings, during which he frequently drew the judge's ire by mangling the history of the case. Judge Xinis of Maryland has lightly remarked on the cavalcade of DOJ lawyers, with tart but breezy asides from the bench like, 'I'm sure you've read everything in the case.' The revolving door of DOJ attorneys seems clearly intended to replenish the exhausted supply of the benefit of the doubt and personal capital expended by prior attorneys. It has also made it harder for Xinis to pin the government down. But the bulk of the bad faith conduct over the last two days involved the witness that the government put on the stand after Xinis ordered it to present an official with personal knowledge of the Abrego Garcia case who could answer questions about what the government intends to do with him if he is released pending trial in Tennessee. The government called Thomas Giles, a career ICE official who is now the interim assistant director for enforcement and removal operations, a relatively high-ranking position. But as Abrego Garcia's attorneys quickly drew out on cross examination, Giles had had no involvement with the Abrego Garcia case until Tuesday morning, when he received a call notifying him that he would be the designated government witness. It only got worse from there. Pressed by Abrego Garcia lawyer Sascha N. Rand to explain what he had done to prepare for his testimony, Giles admitted to reading a one-and-a-half-page executive summary of the case that had been prepared for him, doing a cursory search of his emails, and reviewing new ICE policies on third country removals. Giles confirmed that other than government lawyers, he had talked to no other officials in or outside of ICE involved in the Abrego Garcia case to get himself up to speed. 'I do not have personal knowledge of the case,' Giles conceded at one point, before trying to rally. 'But I did acquire that knowledge over the past two days.' In sum, it became apparent that Giles had no personal knowledge of the Abrego Garcia case despite Xinis' order that the government produce such a witness. 'He didn't call anyone,' Judge Xinis later observed. 'He didn't read anything.' Giles wasn't even familiar with the broader policy of third country removals, the process for which the judge was trying to understand so that she could anticipate what might happen to Abrego Garcia as soon as next week. After extended, convoluted testimony from Giles about his understanding of how third country removals work, he conceded, 'I have very little experience with third country removals. I haven't processed anyone in 18 years.' Giles' lack of familiarity with the case and general obtuseness dragged what was supposed to have been, according to the judge, a hearing of one hour or so into a four-hour grind of circular, non-responsive answers and multiple interventions by the judge to try to clear up her own confusion about what standard policy at ICE used to be, what it is now, and whether it will be applied to Abrego Garcia. 'I don't have a whole lot of faith that I understand exactly what is going on,' Xinis would later say. It was a less dramatic but effective parallel to the myriad other obstacles the administration erected to stonewall earlier phases of the case. It left Xinis with 'grave concerns about what I heard today and what will happen to Mr. Abrego Garcia,' she said at the end of testimony Thursday. Giles' non-responsive testimony set the stage for arguments Friday morning on Abrego Garcia's emergency motion seeking 72-hours notice before he's removed to a third country and his return to Maryland while his trial is pending. Xinis arrived in a sour mood over what she had heard from Giles and the government's conduct, at one point calling a government argument 'an insult to my intelligence.' It went downhill from there for new-to-the-case DOJ lawyer Sarmad M. Khojasteh. 'You're making the plaintiff's point,' Xinis interjected during his argument. 'The point is the utter refusal of your client to engage in any conversation about what is going to happen on Wednesday despite the extraordinary circumstances of this case.' In comments from the bench, Xinis confirmed that she had little faith in Giles' testimony and that it had undermined rather than bolstered the government's position. 'The evidence is not credible,' Xinis said. 'It's insufficient and incredible.' Xinis was particularly incensed by the government's repeated assertions — made dozens of times — that Abrego Garcia's fate next week would be left to a yet-to-be-determined low-level case officer and that officer wouldn't even begin to consider what to do with Abrego Garcia until he is moved from criminal custody into ICE custody. 'It defies reality that this is going to be left to a desk officer,' Xinis told Khojasteh. 'And the more you press that, the more concerned I am.' Underlying Xinis' concern is that the Abrego Garcia case has clearly been handled at the highest levels of the Trump administration, including at the Cabinet level and into the White House. Her efforts to figure out who has been making decisions and to obtain testimony from administration officials with direct knowledge of those decisions has mostly failed over the past four months. Instead, she's been given witnesses who can't speak from personal knowledge. DOJ political appointees — rarely the same ones twice — have mostly taken the hits that were reserved for administration officials. Against that backdrop, the notion that there is no plan for what to do next with Abrego Garcia seemed preposterous. And Judge Xinis called it out: 'Now you will have me believe that a desk officer will quarterback where Mr. Abrego Garcia goes and what they do next.' Based on her comments in court, Xinis seemed most likely to issue an order effectively blocking the administration for at least a short period of time from moving Abrego Garcia to a far-flung location in the United States or to a third country. Her remarks signaled that over the course of the case, Xinis' skepticism toward the administration has ripened into full-blown disbelief: 'If past is prologue, Mr. Abrego Garcia will be moved … and before we know it he's on a plane and I've lost jurisdiction.'
