Trump administration asks the supreme court to lift an order barring deportations under wartime law
This reported is from the Associated Press.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the supreme court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, while a court fight continues.
The emergency appeal to the high court follows a rejection of the administration’s plea to the federal appeals court in Washington. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of appellate judges left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
The Justice Department argued in court papers that federal courts shouldn’t interfere with sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It also claimed that migrants should make their case in a federal court in Texas, where they are being detained.
The order temporarily blocking the deportations was issued by US district judge James Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.
Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war to justify the swift deportation of hundreds of people he alleged to be gang members under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
Key events
Carney tells Trump Canada will implement retaliatory tariffs in ‘constructive’ phone call
Canada will implement retaliatory tariffs “to protect Canadian workers and our economy” in response to US trade actions, Mark Carney told Donald Trump during their first conversation as leaders earlier on Friday.
In a statement issued by the Canadian PM’s office, Carney said the call had been “extremely constructive” and “the leaders agreed to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election”.
Earlier, Trump called the conversation “productive” and said the two leaders would meet after Canada’s election.
State Department notified Congress of intent to reorganize USAID, Rubio says
This report is from Reuters.
The State Department notified Congress on Friday of its intent to reorganize the US Agency for International Development and discontinue remaining functions that do not align with administration priorities, secretary of state Marco Rubio said.
A statement from Rubio said USAID had “strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high”. It reads:
Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over. We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens.
The statement said the State Department and USAID had notified Congress on their intent to undertake a reorganization “that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1 … and discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities”.
From the start of Trump’s second term, billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) launched a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department. The administration has since fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depended.
On 18 March a federal judge ruled that Musk and Doge had likely violated the US constitution by shutting down USAid, and ordered the Trump administration to reverse some of the actions it took to dismantle the agency.
Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80% of all USAID programs had been canceled.
Related: Musk and Doge’s USAid shutdown likely violated US constitution, judge rules
Trump administration says the president, not the judiciary, decides how to conduct sensitive national security related operations
In its emergency appeal on Friday to the supreme court seeking to lift an order barring deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, the justice department said in its that the case presents the question of who decides how to conduct sensitive national security related operations, the president or the judiciary.
The department wrote:
The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice.
The American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s use of the act to rapidly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador. The ACLU argues the law denies the migrants the due process to contest the basis for their removal.
In Friday’s filing, the justice department added that the administration had designated members of the gang “through a rigorous process”.
As Donald Trump and his top officials scrabble to respond to the Signal leak scandal, my colleague Jonathan Freedland and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser discuss the fallout of the jaw-dropping security breach, and why the US president is attacking the media instead of the people who let a journalist read potentially classified material.
It’s all in the latest edition of Politics Weekly America which you can listen to here:
Trump says he had productive call with Canadian PM Mark Carney
This report is from Reuters.
Donald Trump said he had a productive call on Friday with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and that the two leaders would meet after Canada’s election, which is scheduled for next month amid increased tensions between the neighboring allies.
“It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
That work “will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada”, he added.
Carney and his office have not yet released their take on the call, which comes the day after the prime minister vowed to transform Canada’s economy to be less dependent on the US and ahead of Trump’s 25% tariffs on cars from overseas expected to come into effect on 2 April, which Carney described as a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.
My colleague Jon Henley has more on that here:
Relations have deteriorated since Trump upended the relationship with tariff threats and repeated comments about making it the 51st US state.
Carney, who took office in mid-March, called for a snap election to be held on 28 April, in which US relations will factor heavily.
Joanna Walters
Hillary Clinton on Friday called the Trump administration’s approach to governing both dumb and dangerous in an essay excoriating the Signal chat scandal and the Elon Musk-led mission to slash the federal workforce, and concluding that Trump would make the US “feeble and friendless”.
The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that has been given the headline: “How much dumber will this get?” and opens: “It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity.”
Clinton starts with the Signal chat group scandal, when Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, mistakenly added a top US journalist to a small group of government leaders on the encrypted but unclassified app and then the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, proceeded to discuss intricate details of a forthcoming airstrike on Houthi militants in Yemen and report back to the group on the deadly results.
The US vice-president, JD Vance, was included, who took another swipe at European reliance on US military security, and so was the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Hegseth relayed times that US fighter jets would take off and his updates on death and destruction on the ground elicited triumphant comments and emojis from some others in the group.
Here is more from Donald Trump’s administration’s request to the supreme court to lift its order barring deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
Writing in their request, federal lawyers said:
“That order is forcing the United States to harbor individuals whom national-security officials have identified as members of a foreign terrorist organization bent upon grievously harming Americans.”
They went on to add:
“Those orders—which are likely to extend additional weeks—now jeopardize sensitive diplomatic negotiations and delicate national-security operations, which were designed to extirpate TdA’s [Tren de Aragua] presence in our country before it gains a greater foothold.”
Trump administration asks the supreme court to lift an order barring deportations under wartime law
This reported is from the Associated Press.
The Trump administration on Friday asked the supreme court for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, while a court fight continues.
The emergency appeal to the high court follows a rejection of the administration’s plea to the federal appeals court in Washington. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of appellate judges left in place an order temporarily prohibiting deportations of the migrants under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act.
The Justice Department argued in court papers that federal courts shouldn’t interfere with sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It also claimed that migrants should make their case in a federal court in Texas, where they are being detained.
The order temporarily blocking the deportations was issued by US district judge James Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal courthouse in Washington.
Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since the second world war to justify the swift deportation of hundreds of people he alleged to be gang members under a presidential proclamation calling the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.
US consumer confidence hit by tariff fears
Graeme Wearden
Donald Trump’s trade wars are hurting US consumer sentiment, a new survey shows, as Americans anticipate high prices from new tariffs.
US consumer sentiment has fallen to its lowest in over two years, the latest poll from the University of Michigan shows.
Its index of Consumer Sentiment fell to 57.0 this month, down from 64.7 in February, and 28% lower than a year ago. A measure of consumer expectations for the economy fell particularly sharply.
Surveys of Consumers director Joanne Hsu explains:
The expectations index plunged a precipitous 18% and has now lost more than 30% since November 2024. This month’s decline reflects a clear consensus across all demographic and political affiliations; Republicans joined independents and Democrats in expressing worsening expectations since February for their personal finances, business conditions, unemployment, and inflation.
The survey also showed a jump in long-term inflation expectations:
The University of Michigan sentiment index shows a bigger-than-expected drop to 57, the lowest since November 2022. Their long-term #inflation expectation, meanwhile, jumps to 4.1%, a 32-year high—a bullish view on inflation that is not shared by either the bond market or the… pic.twitter.com/4RX0SXjNBV
— Ole S Hansen (@Ole_S_Hansen) March 28, 2025
Hsu added that consumers continue to worry about the potential for pain amid “ongoing economic policy developments”, a nod to Donald Trump’s push to raise tariffs on imported goods.
Notably, two-thirds of consumers expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, the highest reading since 2009. This trend reveals a key vulnerability for consumers, given that strong labor markets and incomes have been the primary source of strength supporting consumer spending in recent years.
You can follow my colleague Graeme Wearden’s business live blog here:
Organizers accuse Trump of trying to silence federal workers with union order
Michael Sainato
Union leaders have accused Donald Trump of union busting in a “blatant” attempt to silence them after the president stepped up his attacks on government unions on Thursday, signing an executive order that attempts to eliminate collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
The order limits the departments and classifications of federal workers who can organize a union and instructs the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
The office of personnel management issued a memo following the directive, providing guidance to the departments and subdivisions on the order, which included terminating their collective bargaining agreements and end voluntary union dues collection through payrolls.
Following the order the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in a Texas court to support its move to end collective bargaining, claiming collective bargaining agreements “significantly constrain” the executive branch.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, said the move was “straight out of Project 2025”, the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s manifesto to remake the federal government.
This executive order is the very definition of union busting. It strips the fundamental right to unionize and collectively bargain from workers across the federal government at more than 30 agencies. It’s clear that this order is punishment for unions who are leading the fight against the administration’s illegal actions in court – and a blatant attempt to silence us.”
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, said:
These threats will not work. Americans will not be intimidated or silenced. AFGE isn’t going anywhere. Our members have bravely served this nation, often putting themselves in harm’s way, and they deserve far better than this blatant attempt at political punishment.
“President Trump’s attempt to unlawfully eliminate the right to collectively bargain for hundreds of thousands of federal workers is blatant retribution,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
This attack is meant to silence their voices, so Elon Musk and his minions can shred the services that working people depend on the federal government to do.
You can read the rest of the story here:
Global anti-Elon Musk protests planned at nearly 200 Tesla showroom locations
Dara Kerr
Hundreds of protests at Tesla showrooms are planned across the US and internationally on Saturday.
Organizers have dubbed it Tesla Takedown’s Global Day of Action, the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations that began shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated. Organizers say the rallies will take place in front of more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide, including nearly 50 in California alone.
The protesters’ goal is to send a message to the Trump administration that they’re against what the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, is doing with the US federal government – laying off thousands of workers, cutting department budgets, giving fascist salutes and getting rid of entire agencies.
Vickie Mueller Olvera, who has been organizing Tesla Takedown protests in the Bay Area, said:
Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon. He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.
Olvera said that demonstrators were asking people to do three things: don’t buy a Tesla, sell off Tesla stock and join the Tesla Takedown protest movement.
More on this story here:
Sam Levine
‘A capitalistic cowardice’: big law firms being threatened by Trump face pressure to speak out
Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms and attorneys who challenge his priorities are roiling the legal community, with some capitulating to the administration’s demands amid mounting pressure on the US’s biggest firms to speak out.
The president signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting the firm Jenner & Block over its previous employment of Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia. The order came after Trump issued similar executive orders targeting three other firms – Covington and Burling, Perkins Coie, and Paul Weiss – over their representation of his political rivals. As we’ve reported, Jenner & Block on Friday sued the US government seeking to block an executive order that would halt the firm’s business with the government and revoke the security clearances of its attorneys.
Indeed not only do Trump’s executive orders threaten to cripple the firms by revoking the security clearances of their lawyers and ending access to government buildings, they would force clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firm. Trump also issued a separate executive order on Friday directing US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers taking actions to block the administration’s priorities.
Scholars and experts say there is little doubt that Trump’s executive orders are a thinly-veiled effort to intimidate lawyers who might otherwise challenge the administration. The actions undermine a key element of the American democratic system by limiting the ability of potential adversaries to access the judicial system, one of the most powerful checks on executive power.
Trump got a huge boost last week when the firm Paul Weiss accepted demands from Trump in exchange for withdrawing the executive order targeting the firm. The White House was gleeful at that result and the administration reportedly already has a list of other firms it may subject to similar treatment.
David Perez, a partner at Perkins Coie, wrote in a post on Sunday on LinkedIn:
Paul Weiss’s deal emboldened him to ratchet up his attack on one of the strongest checks on his power: lawyers and the rule of law. Now more than ever law firms and lawyers across the political spectrum have to stand up for our timeless values.
Perkins Coie is also suing the administration over the order and won a temporary restraining order blocking it.
Read the full story here:
Earlier, we reported on Donald Trump issuing a proclamation on Thursday targeting law firm WilmerHale, the fifth time the president has taken aim at a major firm with connections to his legal or political adversaries.
The proclamation cited WilmerHale’s ties to Robert Mueller, the former US special counsel who investigated Russian contacts with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
It also accused the firm of donating free legal work to support “destructive” causes related to immigration and voting, and said it discriminated based on race.
Like three earlier executive orders issued by Trump against other firms, the proclamation suspended security clearances held by lawyers at WilmerHale, restricted their access to government officials and ordered a review meant to terminate federal contracts held by the firm’s clients.
A WilmerHale spokesperson said Trump’s proclamation resembled an earlier executive order that was suspended by a judge. “We look forward to pursuing all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order,” the firm said.
Trump has vowed to target more law firms, accusing them of “weaponizing” the legal system against him and his allies.
WilmerHale, Covington, Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block, another firm named in an executive order earlier this week, are each representing clients in lawsuits against the Trump administration over issues such as immigration, transgender rights and firings of government workers.
In WilmerHale’s case, the firm represents a group of inspectors general who allege the administration illegally ousted them. The firm also played a key role in lawsuits against the first Trump administration.
You can read the full story here:
Another law firm targeted by Trump sues to block punishing executive order
Sam Levine
The law firm Jenner & Block sued the Trump administration on Friday, seeking to block an executive order that would halt the firm’s business with the government and revoke the security clearances of its attorneys.
Trump has issued similar orders against five firms, all in retaliation for employing or representing political enemies: Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Paul, Weiss, Covington and Burling, and Perkins Coie. Only Perkins Coie has challenged the order in court and successfully convinced a US district judge in Washington to block it.
Jenner & Block’s suit is significant because it comes at a moment when there is deep concern that the legal community isn’t doing enough to push back against Trump’s efforts to target firms. Lawyers and other experts see Trump’s executive orders targeting firms as an anti-democratic program to intimidate adversaries and make it more difficult to challenge him and his administration in court.
That concern escalated after Paul, Weiss reached an agreement with the Trump administration to withdraw the executive order against it. Another major firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is reportedly in talks with the Trump administration to avoid having an executive order issued against it, the New York Times reported (paywall) Thursday evening.
Trump targeted Jenner & Block over the firm’s employment of Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Weissmann hasn’t worked at the firm since 2021 and has been a prominent Trump critic, frequently appearing on television.
Jenner & Block’s suit, filed in the federal district court in Washington DC, details how the order cripples the firm. Over the last five years, 40% of its revenue have come from clients who are government contractors, subcontractors, or affiliated with the government. It also says it harms the firm’s pro-bono practice because it may represent clients and take positions that are at odds with the administration.
Lawyers from Cooley LLP, which is representing Jenner & Block, say that the executive order targeting the firm is blatantly unconstitutional.
“The Constitution, top to bottom, protects against such attempts by the government to target citizens and lawyers based on the opinions they voice, the people with whom they associate, and the clients they represent,” it says. Creating a list of disfavored law firms, it says, is “ is anathema to our scheme of ordered liberty.”
Democrats raise regulatory concerns over Trump family crypto venture and ask financial watchdogs how they plan to oversee the family’s cryptocurrency activities.
Five Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren, sought answers regarding World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by Donald Trump and his family, and its newly announced plans to issue a stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported on Friday citing a letter.
The lawmakers warned US financial regulators of a potential “extraordinary conflict of interest” in overseeing the cryptocurrency entity.
The letter was sent early on Friday, addressed to the Federal Reserve’s vice chair of bank supervision Michelle Bowman and acting comptroller of the currency Rodney Hood.
The senators questioned how regulators would manage oversight given the company’s ties to the sitting president.
Legislation moving through Congress would set up a regulatory structure for stablecoins, digital currencies that act as dollar-like instruments for storing value or purchasing other crypto assets. The bill would designate the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) as overseers, while laying out specific standards for reserves and consumer protections, the report added.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment. The White House and OCC didn’t immediately respond to Reuters request for comments.
Founded two months before Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, World Liberty’s creation was announced by Trump, his three sons and the wealthy real estate businessman Steve Witkoff, who is now Trump’s Middle East envoy.
Trump’s aides have said he has handed over control of his business ventures, which are being reviewed by outside ethics lawyers.
On Tuesday, World Liberty Financial said it will launch a stablecoin, called USD1, adding that it will be fully backed by US Treasuries, dollars and other cash equivalents and is designed to keep a value of $1.
Related: US rise of cryptocurrency and fall of regulation pose ‘profound risks’ – report
