Trump related court cases

Common Dreams - More than 50 Venezuelan migrants had been "loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport" from Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to halt its plans to deport them early Saturday morning.

"The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court," the majority wrote in an unsigned order following an emergency petition that was filed by the ACLU Friday night. Right-wing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

NY Times - Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions and curriculum so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.  The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle between one of the country’s most prestigious universities and a U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official. The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” two people familiar with the matter said.

NY Times - A federal judge in Boston on Friday ordered the Trump administration to issue passports that reflect the self-identified gender of six transgender people rather than requiring that the passports display the sex on the applicants’ original birth certificates.  The order from Judge Julia E. Kobick was a victory, at least temporarily, for the six plaintiffs, who she said were likely to prevail on their claim that a new policy by the Trump administration amounts to a form of unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Fifth Amendment, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act. The State Department adopted the new policy earlier this year to comply with an executive order from President Trump directing all government agencies to limit official recognition of transgender identity.

Federal judge pauses US plans for mass layoffs at consumer bureau.  The federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from laying off about 90% of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s staff in order to consider whether such layoffs could violate a previous court order intended to preserve the agency’s operations and determine compliance with the law. The layoffs could affect up to 1,500 employees. 

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said during a Friday hearing that she was "deeply concerned" about the plan and would be suspending the reduction in force (RIF) until she determines if it violates her previous order, according toThe Associated Press.

"I'm willing to resolve it quickly, but I'm not going to let this RIF go forward until I have," said the appointee of former President Barack Obama. She scheduled an April 28 hearing, which is set to include testimony from officials who worked on the plan.

NBC News - The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to not deport Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act for now. Details emerge about the victims and the suspect in the Florida State University shooting. And an inside look at the world's largest wholesale market, which is on the front line of the trade war between the U.S. and China.

 

 A federal judge ordered that Rumeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student who wrote an essay about Israel and the war in Gaza and is now fighting deportation, be transferred back to Vermont.