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    Supreme Court Rules Wrongfully Deported Man Must Return To US

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national living in Maryland, from an El Salvador prison.

    Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to the El Salvadoran mega-prison last month for being an alleged MS-13 gang member, however, his attorneys maintain he does not have any gang ties. Garcia’s wrongful deportation has triggered an onslaught of criticisms from both sides of the aisle. (RELATED: IRS, DHS Reach Game-Changing Agreement For Trump Immigration Agenda)

    The Supreme Court sided with U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis who initially ordered federal officials to coordinate Garcia’s return back to Maryland in a Monday order, calling his deportation “wholly unlawful.”

    Fox News reports:

    “On March 15, 2025, the United States removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States to El Salvador, where he is currently detained in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT),” the order states. “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.” 

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she “would have declined to intervene in this litigation and denied the application in full.”

    “Nevertheless, I agree with the Court’s order that the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the processes to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador,” Sotomayor wrote. “That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”

    The Justice Department responded to the order in a statement to Fox News in a statement. 

    “As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the President to conduct foreign affairs,” the statement says. “By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”

    Trump Secures Release Of American Ballerina In Prisoner Swap With Russia

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    (Miami - Flórida, 09/03/2020) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro durante encontro com o Senador Marco Rubio..Foto: Alan Santos/PR

    The Trump Administration has reportedly secured the release of another American being held prisoner in Russia.

    On Thursday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the release of American ballerina Ksenia Karelina.

    Moscow released Karelina in exchange for German-Russian citizen Arthur Petrov, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. on charges of exporting sensitive microelectronics, the Wall Street Journal reported.

    “American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,” Rubio wrote on X.

    Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason for donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in early 2024.

    She was initially detained for “petty hooliganism” while visiting family in Russia in February 2024, but the charge was later upgraded to treason after accusations that she was acting as an American spy.

    Russian authorities claimed that Karelina, who lived in Los Angeles, raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in “public actions” that supported Ukraine while in the U.S. 

    Her boyfriend, boxer Chis Van Deerden, told Fox News Digital last year that she was “proud to be Russian, and she doesn’t watch the news. She doesn’t intervene with anything about the war.”

    She is the latest American prisoner detained in another country to be freed under President Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Trump brought American history teacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, back to the U.S.

    In March, the Taliban agreed to release American prisoner Faye Hall after President Donald Trump removed multimillion-dollar bounties on senior members of the militant group, according to a report by the Telegraph.

    The White House shared a video on X of Hall thanking the president.

    “I’m glad you’re the President, and thank you for bringing me home,” Hall said. “I have never been so proud to be an American citizen. Thank you, Mr. President.”

    In a response posted to Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Thank you Faye — So honored with your words!”

    Trump Announces Pause On Tariffs, Except For China

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Image via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    On Wednesday, President Trump raised tariffs on China to 125 percent and implemented a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs against all other trading partners, causing a major surge in the markets.

    “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform.

    Trump’s decision to pause the higher reciprocal tariffs that he announced last week, which hit about 60 countries on Wednesday morning, caused an immediate market surge.

    Moments after his social media post, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising by 2,000 points after days of major losses on Wall Street.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Report: Supreme Court Gives Trump Green-light To Axe Some Probationary Workers

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Just in…

    On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration by enabling officials to fire thousands of federal workers in their probationary period, saying the government employee unions that sued don’t have legal standing. 

    The emergency ruling, for now, lifts one of two lower court orders reversing the mass terminations. The other injunction, which has not yet reached the high court, remains in effect and still protects many employees’ jobs. 

    Read:

    24a904-orderDownload

    “The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the court wrote in its unsigned ruling. 

    Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, both members of the court’s liberal wing, publicly dissented. 

    Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have sought to rapidly reshape the federal bureaucracy, sparking dozens of lawsuits across the country.

    Democrat-led states, government unions and individual employees have filed several lawsuits alleging the administration did not follow the proper procedures for firing probationary employees

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Order For Trump Admin To Return Wrongfully Deported Immigrant

    By
    admin
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    1
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily paused a lower court’s order requiring the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. This pause delays the midnight deadline previously set for Abrego Garcia’s return.

    U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had earlier mandated the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return by midnight, emphasizing that his deportation was an “administrative error.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged the mistake but argued that the court’s injunction was “patently unlawful,” asserting that the government lacks the authority to retrieve him from El Salvador.

    Abrego Garcia, 29, had been residing legally in the U.S. with authorization from the Department of Homeland Security and has no criminal record. An immigration judge had previously ruled in 2019 that he should not be deported due to the likelihood of facing persecution by gangs in El Salvador. Despite this, he was detained and deported last month.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/us_icegov/54295293536/in/photostream/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)

    The Hill reports:

    Roberts agreed to hold the deadline until the high court can resolve the Trump administration’s emergency request to wipe it completely.  The chief justice set a fast briefing schedule for the request, ordering the plaintiffs to respond by Tuesday afternoon.

    Monday’s “administrative stay” does not address the underlying merits of the dispute and is not necessarily an indication of how the court will rule.

    The Trump administration has acknowledged an “administrative error” that mistakenly removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who resides in Maryland, despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling protecting him from being deported to El Salvador over fears of violence. 

    Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of migrants deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison last month. The administration has accused him of being connected to MS-13 based on a report from a confidential informant, but Abrego Garcia’s family rejects that he has any gang ties.

    Casa Presidencial El Salvador, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotospresidencia_sv/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)

    DOJ asserts that it cannot return Abrego Garcia to Maryland now that he is under the supervision of Salvadoran authorities.

    The administration has linked Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang, a claim that has been contested due to a lack of supporting evidence. The case has drawn significant attention, highlighting tensions between judicial authority and executive actions in immigration enforcement.

    Appeals Court Blocks Trump Firings, Setting Stage For Supreme Court Showdown Over Executive Power

    By
    admin
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    0
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    In a major reversal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 7–4 to block the Trump administration from removing two Democratic appointees from federal labor boards. The ruling puts Gwynne Wilcox back on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris back on the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

    Both Biden appointees were previously ousted by President Trump, who argued that restructuring federal agencies gave him the authority to fire appointees at will. A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals initially backed that move. But the full court disagreed.

    In its Monday ruling, the court said the firings broke the law—specifically, legal protections that say members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB can only be removed for cause, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The majority leaned on long-standing Supreme Court precedent to support their stance.

    The dissenting judges argued that courts shouldn’t have the power to reinstate executive officers.

    AgnosticPreachersKid, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    With Wilcox and Harris back in place, both boards now have quorum and can resume their functions in overseeing employee grievances and labor disputes.

    The highly unusual ruling takes direct aim at one of the Trump administration’s core legal claims: that the president can fire appointees at will, even in independent agencies.

    Politico‘s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney have additional details on the fallout and what to expect next:

    It’s a whiplash-inducing turn for the two officials, fired by Trump in the first days of his term. Judges on the federal district court bench in Washington reinstated both of them, harshly scolding Trump for ignoring the laws meant to protect the officials from removal without misconduct or other improper behavior.

    But last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit blocked those orders from taking effect, ruling 2-1 that the laws improperly restricted the president’s ability to manage the executive branch. Monday’s ruling, in turn, withdraws that order and allows the officials to return to their posts.

    In the unsigned order Monday, the appeals court’s majority pointed to Supreme Court decisions from the 1930s and 1950s in which the justices “unanimously upheld removal restrictions for government officials on multimember adjudicatory boards.” While more recent rulings from the high court have undermined the rationale of those decisions, the justices have never flatly reversed them.

    Legal analysts expect the case to head to the Supreme Court. If it does, it could become a defining case on the limits of presidential power and the independence of federal agencies.

    Report: Judge Orders Trump Administration To Return Man Deported To El Salvador Prison

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    2

    A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to immediately make arrangements for the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison. 

    Fox News reports that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been illegally deported to El Salvador and said he must be returned by Monday before midnight.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    NYC Mayor Ditches Democrats – Announces Re-election Bid As An Independent

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    via Wikimedia Commons

    Shaking things up…

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced his re-election campaign but with a big caveat: he’s running as an Independent.

    Adams told Politico on Monday that he wants to “mount a real independent campaign,” saying that the federal bribery charges, which have been dismissed, “handcuffed him.” The New York City Mayor said he’d be “uninhibited” while campaigning.

    “I’m in the race to the end. I’m not running on the Democratic line. It’s just not realistic to turn around my numbers and to run a good campaign (from) where we are right now,” Adams said. “It hurts like hell.”

    Adams faces an uphill battle in his re-election campaign. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on March 1 that he’d be running for New York City mayor.

    U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho on Wednesday dismissed federal charges against Adams, which alleged he used his position to receive luxury travel and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish foreign nationals.

    Adams has maintained his innocence and argued that the case was politically motivated by his criticism of the Biden administration’s immigration policy. 

    A Quinnipac University survey that was conducted just before and just after Cuomo announced his run for mayor found the former governor enjoying 31% support among New York City Democrats, while Adams garnered 11%.

    During the interview, the incumbent New York City Mayor slammed Cuomo for signing bail reform measures into law which he says led to a rise in crime during the coronavirus era.

    “Look at bail reform — that’s Andrew,” Adams said. “He can’t say, ‘I’m going to save the city from the far left’ when he surrendered to the far left.”

    Adams told the outlet that he would submit the required 3,750 signatures on May 27, which would put him on the ballot for November’s election.

    “Now I need this runway until November to redefine and remind people: This is why you elected me in the first place,” Adams said.

    NYC Mayor Eric Adams Indictment Dismissed

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    via Wikimedia Commons

    On Wednesday, a federal judge dismissed federal corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams, underscoring the prosecutorial power of the Trump administration.

    In his ruling, the judge, Dale E. Ho of federal court in Manhattan, refused to allow the government to keep open the option of reinstating the charges, as the Justice Department had sought.

    The New York Times reports:

    The decision abruptly ended the long-running case weeks before it had been set for trial. It was also the culmination of a bitter clash between the prosecutors who indicted Mr. Adams and the officials at Mr. Trump’s Justice Department who killed the case.

    The fight, in which Manhattan prosecutors and Justice Department officials accused each other of ethical misconduct, left Mr. Adams deeply damaged as he faces a steep uphill climb for re-election this year.

    The Justice Department had moved to dismiss the charges against the mayor after the prosecutors who had brought the indictment refused to do so. One of the department’s highest-ranking officials offered a highly unusual justification, arguing that the case was compromising Mr. Adams’s ability to help enforce the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Winner Projected In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race In Blow To Trump

    By
    Patrick Houck
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    0

    The high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race shaped up to be competitive as predicted, with control of the court—and potentially the future of election law, redistricting and abortion access in the battleground state—hanging in the balance.

    However, the end result saw Susan Crawford, a liberal-leaning Dane County Circuit Court Judge, defeat Brad Schimel, a conservative Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge, preserving the court’s 4-3 liberal majority until at least 2028.

    As The Hill reports, Tuesday night’s outcome comes as a blow to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk:

    The election offered the first big test for both parties since the November elections and came after record-breaking amounts of money poured into the race. In particular, the race was seen as a test of Musk’s political sway, as his super PAC, America PAC, alone spent more than $12 million to support Schimel. He also traveled to Wisconsin the Sunday before the election, where he handed out $1 million checks to voters who had signed his petition against “activist judges.”

    Musk’s involvement sparked controversy, with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul unsuccessfully suing to block his actions as potential vote-buying.

    Musk’s unpopularity may have played a role in the election, though it’s not the sole factor in Crawford’s victory. Economic uncertainty, a declining stock market and sweeping cuts to government programs with little congressional oversight seems to have motivated Democrats and independents.

    Trump also waded into the race, repeatedly urging voters to go to the polls and support Schimel.

    The race will also be a bitter disappointment for Wisconsin Republicans, who lost a chance to keep their conservative majority after Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative candidate Dan Kelly in 2023.

    This year’s race, which shattered the 2023 race’s fundraising records by tens of millions of dollars, received outsized national attention not just because it determined the partisan tilt of the court, but also because it comes less than three months into Trump’s second term as president, making it the first critical referendum on the president.

    Turnout was significant in key battleground counties, with Schimel performing worse than Trump in urban, suburban and rural areas.

    According to projections from Decision Desk HQ, Crawford is expected to receive 54.5% of the vote, while Schimel is projected at 45.6%, giving Crawford a decisive 8.9-point margin of victory.

    For context, Trump won Wisconsin in the 2024 presidential election by approximately 0.9%.

    With national implications in a perennial swing state that will help decide control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections, all eyes will remain on the Badger State as next year’s election cycle gets underway.

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