Friday, May 23, 2025 9:42 AM
Judge scolds DOJ in dismissing ICE facility trespassing charge against Newark mayor
A federal judge chided the Department of Justice (DOJ) during a Wednesday hearing where he agreed to dismiss a trespassing charge against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) that stemmed from his visit to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility earlier this month alongside three Democratic members of Congress.
U.S. District Judge Andre Espinosa said the arrest suggested a “worrisome misstep” by the New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office, noting the “apparent rush” in bringing the case that culminated in the government’s “embarrassing” retraction of the charge.
He dismissed the complaint against Baraka with prejudice, meaning the charge cannot be brought again.
“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” Espinosa said to the government’s lawyer. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”
The dismissal comes after Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said her office planned to drop the single misdemeanor trespassing charge.
She revealed in the same announcement that Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), one of the lawmakers Baraka accompanied to the Delaney Hall ICE detention center, would be charged with assaulting law enforcement while at the detention center.
McIver was due in court Wednesday. The criminal complaint against her says she “slammed her forearms” into immigration officers as they attempted to arrest Baraka.
In response to Espinosa’s remarks, DOJ lawyer Stephen Demanovich said it is the U.S. attorney’s office’s goal “at all times” to uphold justice and that he understood the judge’s message.
Espinosa warned the government that an arrest is a “severe action carrying significant reputational and personal consequences.” He offered Baraka’s counsel an opportunity to rebut the accusations.
“I think it’s clear that the mayor is not guilty of the offenses with which he was charged,” Baraka lawyer Raymond Brown said.
“I echo Mr. Brown’s thoughts — if this matter had proceeded to trial, we felt confident that Mayor Baraka would be vindicated,” said Rahul Agarwal, another lawyer for Baraka.
Given the opportunity to speak, Baraka said his counsel “said everything eloquently enough.” Espinosa said he signed the government’s motion to dismiss the charges.
Friday, May 23, 2025 9:33 AM
Zeldin slams Whitehouse in heated exchange: Americans ‘put President Trump in office because of people like you’
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin got into a shouting match over agency grant cancellations during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Whitehouse was questioning Zeldin over whether the EPA conducted individual reviews of the grants it had canceled amid sweeping funding cuts across the government under President Trump.
The Rhode Island Democrat said the testimony of agency officials and statements made in court by government lawyers contradict the administration’s comments about the thoroughness of the reviews
Specifically, he pointed to a court document where EPA official Travis Voyles stated, “On February 25, 2025, I conducted an individualized review of EPA grant programs,” as well as Zeldin’s own comments that the administrator himself had conducted a grant review.
Whitehouse also said that “On May 16, DOJ [Justice Department] career lawyers … filed a pleading in federal court that conceded that you had not done individualized, grant-by-grant reviews.”
“The problem with your assertion here today is that it is belied by your own employees’ sworn statements in court and by the decision of the Department of Justice to admit that what you say isn’t true,” Whitehouse told Zeldin.
“No, you’re not grasping the fact that we would have multiple employees looking at these grants. That concept just escapes you,” Zeldin fired back.
Specifically, he pointed to a court document where EPA official Travis Voyles stated, “On February 25, 2025, I conducted an individualized review of EPA grant programs,” as well as Zeldin’s own comments that the administrator himself had conducted a grant review.
Whitehouse also said that “On May 16, DOJ [Justice Department] career lawyers … filed a pleading in federal court that conceded that you had not done individualized, grant-by-grant reviews.”
“The problem with your assertion here today is that it is belied by your own employees’ sworn statements in court and by the decision of the Department of Justice to admit that what you say isn’t true,” Whitehouse told Zeldin.
“No, you’re not grasping the fact that we would have multiple employees looking at these grants. That concept just escapes you,” Zeldin fired back.
Thursday, May 22, 2025 6:58 PM
Judge blocks Trump’s order to shut down the Education Department
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A federal judge ruled Thursday that mass layoffs at the U.S. Education Department are causing "irreparable harm" to students and educators.
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The judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the thousands of employees they laid off in March.
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The judge also temporarily blocked the administration from moving forward with plans to shut down the department.
President Donald Trump’s executive order to close the Education Department and lay off thousands of employees cannot take effect yet, a judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction stopping
the Trump administration from shutting down the department and ordering the agency to rehire the employees who were let go in mass layoff
Thursday, May 22, 2025 5:57 PM
House Republicans pass Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and program cuts after all-night session
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle President Donald Trump’s priority bill to approval Thursday.
With last-minute concessions and stark warnings from Trump, the Republican holdouts largely dropped their opposition to salvage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that’s central to the GOP agenda. The House launched debate before midnight and by dawn the vote was called, 215-214, with Democrats staunchly opposed. It next goes to the Senate, with long negotiations ahead.
“To put it simply, this bill gets Americans back to winning again,” said Johnson, R-La.
The outcome caps an intense time on Capitol Hill, with days of private negotiations and public committee hearings, many happening back-to-back, around-the-clock. Republicans insisted their sprawling 1,000-page-plus package was what voters sent them to Congress — and Trump to the White House — to accomplish. They believe it will be “rocket fuel,” as one put it during debate, for the uneasy U.S. economy.
Trump himself demanded action, visiting House Republicans at Tuesday’s conference meeting and hosting GOP leaders and the holdouts for a lengthy session Wednesday at the White House. Before the vote, the administration warned in a pointed statement that failure “would be the ultimate betrayal.”
After the legislation’s passage, Trump posted on social media: “Thank you to every Republican who voted YES on this Historic Bill! Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work.”
Monday, May 19, 2025 2:34 PM
Supreme Court will let Trump administration end protections for Venezuelans
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday said it will let the Trump administration end the Temporary Protected Status program protecting roughly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants from the threat of deportation while legal proceedings over the move continue.
The high court granted the administration's request to lift for now a lower court's injunction that blocked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's revocation of the Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS, for Venezuelans. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would deny the administration's bid for emergency relief.
Noem terminated the designation — which had been extended by the Biden administration — in February, a move that would have cleared the way for Venezuelans to lose their government-issued work permits and deportations protections on April 7. But a federal judge in California blocked the action in late March and said her decision to terminate the TPS program for the Venezuelan migrants appeared to be "predicated on negative stereotypes and may have been motivated by unconstitutional animus.
CBS News
Trump deportation battles escalating as lawyers say more migrants could soon be removed
A federal appeals court declined to provide emergency relief to the Trump administration and pause the district court's order, leading the Trump administration to seek the Supreme Court's intervention.
"So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is 'contrary to the national interest,'" Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration's emergency appeal with the high court.
Congress in 1990 created the program that allows the federal government to provide temporary immigration protections for migrants from countries experiencing wars, natural disasters or other "extraordinary and temporary" conditions that make it dangerous to send deportees there. The program allows beneficiaries to apply for renewable work permits and deportation deferrals.
During the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for the Temporary Protected Status program, citing "extraordinary and temporary" conditions that prevented Venezuelans in the U.S. from returning to their home country. Mayorkas extended the designation, set to last 18 months, in October 2023.
In addition to designating Venezuela for TPS, the Biden administration also created or expanded programs for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti and Ukraine. The Venezuelan program is the largest and covers roughly 600,000 people through two separate designations, though only the designation from 2023 is at issue in the case before the Supreme Court.
After Mr. Trump took office for his second term, Noem vacated the extension for more than 350,000 Venezuelans, finding that it was "contrary to the national interest" to continue the program. The termination was set to take effect April 7. The Trump administration is also revoking TPS protections for tens of thousands of Haitians, with that move set to take effect in August.
TPS beneficiaries and the National TPS Alliance filed a lawsuit in February challenging Noem's decision to end the protections for Venezuelans, and U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled in their favor, stopping Noem's termination determination from taking effect nationwide.
In a filing with the Supreme Court, Sauer said the district court's order "wrested control of the nation's immigration policy away from the Executive Branch and imposed the court's own perception."
"The district court's decision undermines the Executive Branch's inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs," he wrote, calling the lower court's injunction "ill-considered."
But in response to the request, lawyers for TPS beneficiaries told the Supreme Court in a filing that lifting the district court's injunction would harm the nearly 350,000 people who would immediately lose their right to live and work in the U.S.
"Staying the district court's order would cause far more harm than it would stop," they wrote. "It would radically shift the status quo, stripping plaintiffs of their legal status and requiring them to return to a country the State Department still deems too dangerous even to visit."
They said that the TPS statute does not grant the Homeland Security secretary authority to vacate or rescind an extension, and Noem's terminations of TPS extensions for Venezuela and Haiti were the first and second times that a secretary has set an extension aside in the statute's history.
The request for emergency relief from the Trump administration is one of more than a dozen involving Mr. Trump's second-term agenda that has landed before the Supreme Court, and one of several involving his immigration plans.
The Supreme Court heard arguments on May 15 on the Trump administration's request to narrow nationwide injunctions blocking enforcement of an executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship.
Monday, May 19, 2025 11:09 AM
Republicans pass Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' days after GOP hard-liners rejected it
Republicans advanced their massive tax cut and border security package out of a key House committee during a rare Sunday night vote as deficit hawks who blocked the measure two days earlier reversed course after gaining commitments on the package's spending cuts.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who has made shocking comments about a Ukraine bill, met with Republican lawmakers shortly before the meeting, telling reporters that the changes agreed to were "just some minor modifications. Not a huge
Democrats on the panel pressed for more details about the changes that Republicans had agreed to in the private negotiations. But Rep. Jodey Arrington, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said he could not do so. It comes after CNN suddenly stopped coverage to announce a major bill development.
"Deliberations continue at this very moment," Arrington said. "They will continue on into the week, and I suspect right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House."
The bill had failed to advance earlier this week, with some GOP deficit hawks joining Democratic lawmakers in voting against reporting the measure to the full House. Five Republicans voted no, one on procedural grounds, the other four voicing concerns about the bill's impact on federal budget deficit
Trump's sweeping tax-cut bill passes key committee, moves to House
On Sunday, the four holdouts voicing concerns over the bill's impact on the deficit voted present, allowing the measure to advance by a vote of 17-16.
Monday, May 19, 2025 10:13 AM
Five Republicans Join Democrats to Defeat Bill
GOP lawmakers are pushing a legislative plan to change Medicaid eligibility and eliminate the electric vehicle (EV) mandate. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), has targeted over $900 billion in spending, amid concerns from Democrats about welfare program reductions. President Donald Trump’s plan aims to reshape the budget and reduce costs substantially.
However, on May 16, the GOP's plan failed to advance in the House Budget Committee with a 16-21 vote. Five conservative Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting the bill. Republicans have cited insufficient spending cuts and deficit concerns.
The proposal faces an uncertain path forward. The Budget Committee is set to reconvene, but internal GOP divisions persist.
Friday, May 16, 2025 8:11 PM
GOP Massive Tax Bills
Update 868 – Reconciliation Halted:
House Budget Stops Massive Tax Bill
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In a somewhat surprising turn of events today, the House Budget Committee rejected the GOP reconciliation blueprint, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The Republican defectors cited concerns over the proposal’s overall deficit impact, as well as delays in implementing cost-reduction measures like Medicaid work requirements. GOP leadership is open to making changes that address these concerns before floor consideration next week, but risk spooking moderates already shaky on the huge cuts to federal assistance. Speaker Johnson will have to work some legislative legerdemain if he hopes to meet his goal of passing the package out of the House before the end of next week. His next test will come Sunday at 10 p.m., when the Budget Committee is scheduled to reconsider the proposal.
This week also saw the release of new data, showing that inflation ticked down last month, just as the impact of increased tariffs begins to set in. While the U.S. and China agreed to lower tariff rates, price levels are still set to rise by 1.7 percent, an average household loss of $2,800. Walmart’s announcement that they will be raising prices due to tariffs shows this walk-back will not ease the costly pain to be felt by consumers. We cover these developments, along with relevant hearings, below.
Good weekends all,
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Monday, May 5, 2025 12:31 PM
A person grabs a photo of Columbia student Yunseo Chung as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the U.N. on April 24, 2025, in NYC. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
As part of the Trump administration’s targeting of Columbia University students for deportation, a high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent submitted a wildly inaccurate affidavit to a federal judge to get a search warrant, newly unsealed court records show.
The affidavit misstated basic facts and federal law, attorneys told The Intercept, but the judge nonetheless signed off and authorized ICE to search two students’ dorm rooms based on the assertion that Columbia might be “harboring” them in violation of federal law.
Pointing to decisions of the State Department to revoke one student’s visa and the other’s green card, ICE argued they were in the U.S. unlawfully. But neither ICE nor the State Department have the authority to determine whether someone is in the U.S. lawfully; they need an order from an immigration judge first. On top of that, ICE’s affidavit didn’t offer evidence that Columbia took any concrete steps to hide the students, only that university officials refused to let agents on campus to arrest them without judicial warrants.
“This affidavit is seriously problematic, and it’s extremely troubling that it would be offered to a federal court,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney uninvolved in the case who reviewed the materials, in an emailed statement.
“The entire basis for the criminal warrant was wrong,” wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council also uninvolved in the case, in a social media post.
The affidavit was unsealed in federal court on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit by Columbia student Yunseo Chung, a lawful permanent resident whose green card the Trump administration is trying to revoke based on her arrest at a campus Gaza protest earlier this year. In a March 7 order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked an arcane legal provision he has used against other students with critical views of Israel, determining that Chung’s presence in the U.S. would “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Chung, 21, who is originally from South Korea and has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old, alleges she has been targeted in violation of her First Amendment and due process rights, and that ICE obtained the warrant to search her dorm room under “false pretenses.”
“The agent’s sworn statement confirms that, under the guise of investigating Columbia, ICE’s goal all along was to arrest Yunseo, a permanent resident whose only apparent offense was participating in a protest related to Palestinian human rights,” said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York and co-director of CLEAR, a legal nonprofit and clinic that represents Chung. “Even the minor protest-related charges that ICE cites in its affidavit have since been dismissed.”
ICE and Columbia did not reply to The Intercept’s request for comment about the search warrants.
Sunday, May 5, 2024 7:26 PM
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Sunday, April 7, 2024 2:28 PM
Gaza, gun laws, health care access define 2nd Congressional District primary debate
Sunday, February 4, 2024 6:18 PM
Clint Spellman, Jr. is Running for Congress in 2024 – Maryland District 2 Candidate Interview
