The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to block a lower court’s decision allowing transgender individuals to continue enlisting and serving in the armed forces.

Administration officials are seeking a stay of a broad district court ruling in late March that applied to all troops rather than only to those who challenged President Donald Trump’s executive order in court. The U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling Friday.

The government contends its policy does not discriminate against an entire class of people, but rather finds a diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria to be disqualifying. Gender dysphoria is recognized by medical professionals as distress caused by an incongruence between a person’s gender identity and their sex at birth.

In its application to the Supreme Court Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice argued it’s likely to succeed in the case because the newly adopted policy does not differ widely from those in place under former secretaries of defense.

“The policy was based in part on the findings of a panel of experts convened during the first Trump Administration, which found that service by individuals with gender dysphoria was contrary to ‘military effectiveness and lethality,’” wrote John Sauer, Trump’s solicitor general.

Sauer also argued the district court’s universal order violated the power of the president.

Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 27, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the new policy a month later, reversing former President Joe Biden’s order allowing service members to transition and serve openly under their preferred gender identity.

Trump’s order immediately drew court challenges, including a separate case now in the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.

A Department of Justice attorney arguing before the D.C. Circuit Tuesday alerted the judges that the administration would “imminently” appeal the 9th Circuit decision to the Supreme Court.

Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement in response Tuesday asserting, “Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.

The administration’s emergency application to the high court Thursday is just the latest in the administration’s whack-a-mole battle against lower federal court rulings that have blocked White House actions, particularly on immigration.
 

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson hold a press conference on the Republican budget resolution at the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2025. The Republican leaders each face a challenge in uniting their divided conferences to pass a massive tax and spending plan supported by President Donald Trump. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress have a difficult few months ahead of them as they look to broker agreement within their exceptionally narrow majority on policy issues that have already begun to divide centrists from far-right members of the party.

The negotiations will be the first test of the sort for Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who weren’t in the top posts eight years ago when the GOP passed its last reconciliation package.

Tax law and funding cuts to Medicaid are the issues most likely to prevent one “big, beautiful bill” from moving through both chambers and reaching President Donald Trump’s desk.

Republican leaders will also need to be cautious as the package takes shape about what types of proposals their more vulnerable members vote on, especially if they hope to hold onto at least one chamber of Congress following next year’s midterm elections.

“The swing-district Republicans are in a tougher spot because their voters do want to see some of those tax cuts extended, but they don’t want to see it at the expense of programs like Medicaid,” said Dr. Ben Sommers, Huntley Quelch professor of health care economics at Harvard.

“And so they’re walking a tightrope,” he said. “And at least until there’s a final bill on the floor, a lot of them are going to just keep pushing that final decision down the road and hope that something else happens and that they don’t have to make that tough call.”

The decision to bundle together a permanent extension of the 2017 tax law, hundreds of billions in new spending on border security and defense, a rewrite of the nation’s energy policy and spending cuts means that centrist Republicans will have to cast one take-it-or-leave-it vote.

Breaking up the sweeping package into two or more bills would have given at-risk Republicans the opportunity for more tailored votes, but GOP leaders ultimately rejected that idea — a choice that will put moderates under increasing pressure as the legislation takes shape in the coming weeks.

Democrats in both chambers are expected to unanimously oppose the package.

Normally that would present a challenge in the Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to limit debate on a bill and move onto final passage. But GOP leaders are using the reconciliation process to pass their bill, meaning they only need the support of a simple majority in the Senate. 

Slim margins

House committee chairs are expected to release and mark up 11 bills after the chamber returns from a two-week break in late April, though that’s only the first step.

Once the pieces are all bundled into one package, it will need to get across the House floor without losing more than three Republican votes, a much narrower threshold than the dozen GOP lawmakers in that chamber who voted against the final version of the 2017 tax law.

Republican leaders will then need to keep the party from making significant changes to the package in the Senate, where lawmakers will be able to offer as many amendments as they want when the bill comes to the floor.

That vote-a-rama will test party unity, with Democrats likely to propose amendments re-writing or eliminating specific sections of the bill — especially those addressing tax provisions benefiting the wealthy or corporations, and Medicaid spending cuts.

If more than three Senate Republicans break from the party to alter various elements, it could endanger final approval. However, if GOP senators from swing states vote to keep unpopular provisions in the bill, it could lead to them losing their next reelection bid to a Democrat.

Difference of opinion on Medicaid

The disagreement between centrist Republicans and far-right lawmakers over potential spending cuts to Medicaid is already on full display.

During floor debate on the budget resolution that cleared the way for Republicans to write the massive reconciliation package, Texas Rep. Chip Roy excoriated the state-federal health program for lower income Americans and some people with disabilities.

“Medicaid is debilitating the vulnerable, not helping them,” Roy said. “We are shoveling money out to the able-bodied on the back of expansion of Obamacare.”

On the other ideological side of the conference, a group of 14 centrist House Republicans sent a letter to GOP leaders a few days after voting to adopt the budget resolution to announce they “cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”

“Cuts to Medicaid also threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes, and safety-net providers nationwide,” they wrote. “Many hospitals — particularly in rural and underserved areas — rely heavily on Medicaid funding, with some receiving over half their revenue from the program alone.

“Providers in these areas are especially at risk of closure, with many unable to recover. When hospitals close, it affects all constituents, regardless of healthcare coverage.”

Failed Obamacare repeal

Republican leaders in Congress will want to avoid a repeat of the last time the party tried to overhaul health care in a reconciliation package.

During Trump’s first term, following years of GOP politicians pledging to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, they sought to do just that through the same complex reconciliation process they’re using now.

Ultimately, twenty Republicans voted against the bill in the House and three GOP senators — Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Arizona’s John McCain and Maine’s Susan Collins — blocked that chamber’s repeal-and-replace bill.

Collins said in a floor speech at the time she voted against the House’s version of the bill for several reasons, including that it would have made “sweeping changes to the Medicaid program — an important safety net that for more than 50 years has helped poor and disabled individuals, including children and low-income seniors, receive health care.”

Murkowski wrote in a statement that she voted against the Senate’s so-called “skinny” repeal bill because “both sides must do better on process and substance.”

“I know that access to affordable care is a challenge for so many. I hear from fishermen who can’t afford the coverage that they have, small business owners who can’t afford insurance at all, and those who have gained coverage for the first time in their life,” Murkowski wrote. “These Alaskans have shared their anxiety that their personal situation may be made worse under the legislation considered this week.”

Medicaid cuts could hurt state budgets

GOP lawmakers in Congress won’t be the only members of the party that leaders need to keep in the fold. Republican governors may not have a vote in either chamber, but they do have considerable sway with their congressional delegations and many red states have a substantial percentage of their Medicaid programs covered by federal dollars.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo released a letter last month seeking to assuage fears about potential federal cuts to Medicaid, writing that he was “actively engaged in conversations with the White House and others in the federal government to relay our state’s concerns.”

“An abrupt reduction in federal funding would not only disrupt care for those who rely on Medicaid, but would also destabilize public and private healthcare providers, leading to workforce reductions, service limitations, and financial strain on already overburdened health care facilities,” Lombardo wrote.

National Governors Association Chair Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, and Vice Chair Kevin Stitt, an Oklahoma Republican, wrote in a joint statement released in March that the organization is “committed to advocating for a robust and efficient health and human services system, including Medicaid.”

“Without consultation and proper planning, Congressionally proposed reductions to Medicaid would impact state budgets, rural hospitals and health care service providers,” they wrote. “It is necessary for Governors to have a seat at the table when discussing any reforms and cuts to Medicaid funding.”

Federal spending cuts to Medicaid could lead some of the 40 states that have expanded the program under Obamacare to roll it back, though Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota have the expansion in their constitutions, making the impact of congressional action more complicated for their budgets and residents.

Leighton Ku, professor of health policy and management at The George Washington University, said during an interview that even though GOP governors aren’t members of Congress, they still hold “powerful influence.”

“We’re talking about deep cuts in federal spending that will have profound effects on state economies and state employment,” Ku said. “Governors, particularly those who expanded Medicaid, should feel fairly nervous about: What are the implications for their states in terms of both their political futures as well as what it will do to their state economies?”

“Again, we’re talking about the possibility of maybe somewhere on the order of a million jobs being lost simply because of the Medicaid cuts,” he added. “And that should cause some trepidation among governors.”

Republicans in Congress, Ku said, are trying to reduce spending. But when it comes to Medicaid, where the cost of administering the program is split between states and the federal government, any change to the federal share will come at the expense of the states.

“So the states end up being losers,” he said. “And this will cause states’ governors some unease. Again, it depends on where they lie politically: They may still be willing to accept cuts if it fits in with their ideologies.”

State and local taxes

Republicans also find themselves in a sticky situation when it comes to a major tax provision set to expire at the end of 2025: a limit on the amount of state and local taxes a taxpayer can deduct on their federal tax return. The limit is often simply referred to as the SALT cap.

Like proposed Medicaid cuts, the SALT debate has potential to change the calculus of Republicans willing to vote for the one large reconciliation bill.

For many years prior to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, taxpayers were able to take full advantage of deducting state and local taxes from their federal taxable income. But in that law, GOP lawmakers changed course and enacted a $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction to raise revenue to cover some of the law’s massive tax breaks.

The ability to deduct all eligible state and local taxes on federal tax returns was a win for wealthy households located in states and municipalities with steeper taxes.

At the time, Democrats, who wholesale opposed Trump’s tax agenda, saw the SALT cap as an attack on high-earning, high-tax blue states. But the SALT cap drew ire from across the aisle as well, said Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow and federal tax policy expert for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“The original bill also had a few Republicans that didn’t vote for it because of the cap. So this has been controversial to some degree from the very beginning,” Pomerleau said.

With such a narrow majority in the House, Republicans from high-tax areas, including those representing New York’s Long Island and Staten Island and California’s wealthy suburbs, will have leverage in the coming debate.

“Republicans generally don’t come from those states. There’s only a handful of them. But that brings us back to the vote margin that Republicans have,” Pomerleau said. “They have a lot of power this time around to really get what they want. These lawmakers who represent people that are concerned about this cap are going to want that cap raised.”

The issue is one of the few tax topics not polarized by party because it is defined by location, said Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, a think tank that generally supports lower taxes.

“It’s an interesting sort of debate, just because a lot of tax policy debates have political, partisan, ideological components, right? That’s somewhat predictable,” Watson said. “What’s interesting about SALT is actually it’s also a strong geographic story.”

Watson published the Tax Foundation’s 2023 county-by-county maps of state and local taxes paid as well as deducted from federal taxes in 2020. The data showed the top reporting counties were concentrated in California and New York.

Raising cap would cost federal government

But many Republicans would be happy if the cap on SALT deductions stayed in place to offset the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts.

Raising the cap beyond the current $10,000 limit could reduce federal revenue between $200 billion to $1.2 trillion over the next decade, depending on what level Congress decides, according to a January analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank that leans center-left.

In other words, households deducting more from their federal taxable income means the federal government reaping less revenue.

“Just to give you some order of magnitude, we looked at what would happen if you raised the cap from $10,000 to $20,000. That would cost (the federal government) $250 billion over 10 years. That’s a big number,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Deficit hawks, like Roy of Texas and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, have spoken out in recent months against raising the cap.

And while more federal revenue is lost with each dollar the cap increases, the benefit mainly goes to high-income earners, according to another Tax Policy Center analysis.

“We estimated when you raise the (SALT cap) from $10,000 to $20,000, 93% of the benefit goes to the top …20% , which are people making more than $200,000,” Gleckman said. “And half of it goes to people in the top 5% who are people who make more than $400,000.”

Most taxpayers take the standard deduction, which in 2025 sits at $15,000 for single taxpayers or $30,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly.

“That’s why the vast majority of people get no benefit from this. It’s only people who make a lot of money, who itemize, and who pay a lot of tax who get caught up in the cap,” Gleckman said.

But they may have an outsized voice as Congress hammers out its reconciliation bill in the coming months.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican whose constituents would not benefit from raising the SALT cap, will have a “tough balancing act,” Gleckman said.

“Mike Johnson looks at the narrow majority he has in the House, and he sees if he loses half a dozen seats from places like New York and California because he doesn’t fix the cap then he could not be speaker anymore,” he said.

Republicans in the bipartisan SALT caucus include Reps. Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino and Nicole Malliotakis, all representing New York, as well as Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, and Young Kim of California.

Rachel Snyderman, managing director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said “complicated political tetris” is likely to emerge as lawmakers negotiate the reconciliation bill.

“The caucus that has called for (the cap’s) elimination over the past years has only gotten louder and more vocal and see this year as the opportunity to flex their muscle,” Snyderman said.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 22, 2025, over President Donald Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday grilled the Trump administration and the attorney for transgender service members who won a lower court order reversing President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops.

One judge on the panel voiced serious concerns about the lack of evidence the Defense Department cited when instituting the ban, while another expressed skepticism that the lower court’s nationwide order — instead of applying only to the transgender individuals who brought the case — was appropriate.

Administration officials appealed the case to the D.C. Circuit after district Judge Ana Reyes, appointed by former President Joe Biden, granted a broad preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order.

Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military.

Trump’s January order asserted the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

The Trump administration is expected to “imminently” escalate a separate case on the same issue to the Supreme Court, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Jason Manion said in court Tuesday.

Evidence

Judges on the appeals bench queried both sides on whether the government has evidence to prove transgender individuals cannot fulfill military duties, and if the order bans all trans troops or only those diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis involving distress when a person’s gender identity differs from their sex at birth.

“If the military said people with red hair are just too fragile and vulnerable, we are going to kick them all out of the military, and we are going to not allow any of them ever to join, and we have no evidence of that, but we think they’re a threat to military preparedness, to unit cohesion, and too costly, and so we’re just going to kick them out?” asked Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Manion replied the transgender ban “policy relies on a condition that is marked by severe clinical distress.”

Under military deference — meaning the courts generally defer to the president and military on national security questions — the judges should accept Trump’s and Hegseth’s word on the policy, Manion said.

“If there are mental conditions that will impair someone’s ability to function in the military, or that the military could rationally judge would impair that, then that’s more than enough to satisfy rational basis review,” he said.

Pillard pushed back: Isn’t that the case for all people wanting to join the military, not just transgender individuals? Thousands of transgender troops are already serving, she said.

“If the concerns are with depression or suicidality, there already are standards that would screen someone out for those things, right?” Pillard said.

Trial court ‘overreach’?

Judge Neomi Rao challenged the plaintiffs’ likelihood to succeed, highlighting that the Supreme Court generally views broad orders from district judges as “overreach.”

Reyes’ order covers all transgender troops and those seeking to enlist, not just the eight plaintiffs who brought the case.

“The district court imposed effectively a universal injunction on this policy, going beyond any relief to these particular plaintiffs. So even putting aside the constitutional question, isn’t the government likely to succeed on challenging this remedy?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Shannon Minter, civil rights attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the very nature of the injury” justifies far-reaching court protection.

“This is one of those cases where the injury alleged resides directly in the categorical nature of the policy itself, which declares that transgender people as a group lack the virtues of honesty, discipline, selflessness, integrity, that as such, they have to be purged from the military because they’re transgender, and because the government has this very negative view of what it means to be a transgender person,” Minter said.

In a separate case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.

U.S. Supreme Court case upcoming

Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed during Trump’s first term, asked Manion, “Can you tell us anything about the government’s plans for seeking Supreme Court (review)?”

“I can’t give you an exact date, but it will be very, very quickly, very soon, and I think that may well be quite relevant to this court’s analysis as well,” Manion said.

Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying they “stand ready to continue to zealously represent our clients as we have at every juncture.”

“Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard. The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

The U.S. Supreme Court early Saturday temporarily blocked a new round of deportations under the wartime Alien Enemies Act until the high court considers the case of several migrants in Texas whose lawyers say are at risk for “imminent removal.”

The justices issued the one-page order just after 1 a.m. Eastern, directing the government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

The order was unsigned and noted conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. 

The rare overnight order followed a flurry of activity Friday after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the migrants’ appeal for a temporary restraining order.

A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas on Thursday denied the petitioners were at “imminent risk of summary removal” because immigration officials said in a previous court filing they would not deport the migrants until the district court resolved allegations that the removals are illegal.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter Friday after the group said their clients were “loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport,” violating an earlier ruling from the justices.

The attorneys for Venezuelan men held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, “learned that officers at Bluebonnet have distributed notices under the Alien Enemies Act, in English only, that designate Venezuelan men for removal under the AEA, and have told the men that the removals are imminent and will happen today.”

“These removals could therefore occur at any moment,” the ACLU wrote in its application.

President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in mid-March to trigger the removals of the Venezuelans age 14 and up whom the administration suspected had ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

The deportation flights sparked a legal challenge separately winding through the federal courts. Family members of many of the Venezuelan men say they have no gang ties and have been illegally deported without due process.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 17, 2025, over the White House denying The Associated Press journalists from certain spaces open to other journalists. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press and the Trump administration faced tough questioning in court Thursday as the White House fights to block a lower court order mandating officials stop denying the wire outlet entry to spaces where other journalists are permitted.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia grilled the parties at length on how the First Amendment applies to journalists in the Oval Office and other areas, and whether the president can decide which journalists follow him in the press pool and exclude others based on their viewpoint.

The case, playing out at the district court level as well, tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden sided with the AP on April 8 on the grounds that the Trump administration violated the wire service’s First Amendment rights when it publicly retaliated against the agency for an editorial decision to continue using “Gulf of Mexico” in its reporting and influential stylebook.

Oval Office not for ‘silent retreat’

Before the appeals court Thursday, Eric D. McArthur, representing the government, argued against McFadden’s “unprecedented” preliminary injunction, saying it interferes with the president’s “autonomy” in “highly restricted spaces.”

Pointing out the AP was not demanding access “when the president wants to concentrate on his writing and his work,” Judge Corenlia Pillard said “it’s a little confusing to me when you say a place of ‘autonomy.’”

“You make the Oval sound like a place of silent retreat,” said Pillard, who was appointed to the appeals bench during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Pillard also highlighted the expectation of privacy is different for people in “high public office.”

“There’s already a dozen people in there, so he’s agreed to have a press pool,” she said during McArthur’s roughly 45-minute questioning.

The administration argued in its emergency appeal to block the ruling that Trump will be “irreparably injured” if the higher court doesn’t stay the lower court order while it adjudicates the case.

Officials also countered that the First Amendment protects the president’s right to choose which journalists enter the Oval Office, Air Force One or Mar-a-Lago based on the content of their coverage.

Where’s the distinction?

Charles Tobin, attorney for the AP, argued that the White House has “brazenly excluded” AP reporters and photographers from opportunities open to other journalists.

McFadden “appropriately and very narrowly tailored” his injunction, Tobin said. The lower judge ruled that, under the First Amendment, once the White House opens doors for all journalists to spaces including the Oval Office and East Room, it cannot then exclude them based on viewpoint.

McFadden explicitly wrote his ruling does not mandate journalists be given access to the president or that the president cannot choose which outlets to grant exclusive interviews.

Judge Neomi Rao said, “the AP concedes he could choose journalists based on viewpoint for exclusive interviews.”

“When you’re talking about 10 or 12 journalists in the Oval or on his plane or in his home at Mar-a-Lago, what is the distinction?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first presidency.

Tobin replied that the pool is a system that invites numerous journalists to participate on a rotating basis.

“That’s exactly where the distinction lies,” he said.

Private invitations allowable

Judge Gregory Katsas presented other scenarios when the president could invite only “supportive” members of the public and press, for example in the Cabinet room for a policy rollout.

Tobin argued if the event is open to all press members, the president cannot discriminate based on viewpoint.

“Once you have a system of rotation, that’s when the viewpoint becomes anathema,” Tobin replied.

What if the president “tapped (certain reporters) on the shoulder” and invited only them into the Oval Office, asked Katsas, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Tobin replied the president could handpick reporters for a private interview in the Oval Office, as long as it wasn’t an event open to the wider press pool.

“This seems awfully close to what’s happening here,” Katsas said.

Wire position axed

On Wednesday the White House announced a new media policy placing restrictions on all wire services’ access to the Oval Office and other spaces. Other wire services include Bloomberg and AFP.

Despite McFadden’s court order, the White House on Monday denied entry to an AP reporter and photographer to an Oval Office press conference between Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

The AP filed a motion in district court Wednesday requesting McFadden to enforce his preliminary injunction.

McFadden has scheduled a hearing for Friday.

The White House began denying the AP entry to the Oval Office, East Room and other places on Feb. 11.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced in late February that White House officials would take over pool rotation decisions from the White House Correspondents Association, a member organization that has self-governed journalist rotations and briefing seats placement since the Eisenhower administration.

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 4:04 p.m. Eastern.

WASHINGTON —  A federal judge in Washington found probable cause Wednesday the Trump administration is in contempt of court for defying his order to stop flights of Venezuelan immigrants headed to a prison in El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg gave officials one week to submit a list of steps they have taken, or will take, to comply with his order, or identify the official or officials who chose to send the planes to El Salvador, despite learning of his order, he wrote in a 46-page opinion Wednesday.

Boasberg wrote the government could “purge its contempt,” for example, by voluntarily obeying the order and giving the imprisoned men an opportunity to challenge their cases. Officials could also “propose other methods of coming into compliance.”

If the government does not attempt to remedy the situation, Boasberg will require declarations, or even live witness testimony, to identify who’s responsible for the noncompliance and refer them for criminal prosecution.

The case centers on President Donald Trump’s decision in mid-March to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 200 Venezuelans – and other nationals – with suspected gang ties. The men were detained at the Salvadoran mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Despite Boasberg’s order to halt the flights, including returning two planes that were mid-air, immigration officials allowed them to land in El Salvador — and directed a third one to take off.

Boasberg wrote Wednesday that the “Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” continued Boasberg, who was appointed to the bench in 2011 by former President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

Order ‘gleefully’ violated

Boasberg provided a detailed timeline in a memorandum opinion Wednesday accompanying his probable cause order.

The judge delivered a verbal order at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, mandating the government halt any new deportation flights and bring any planes that had taken off back to the U.S. He later entered a written order into the record at 7:25 p.m., according to the court filing.

“By mid-Sunday morning, the picture of what had happened the previous night came into clearer focus,” he wrote. “It appeared that the Government had transferred members of the Plaintiff class into El Salvador’s custody hours after this Court’s injunction prohibited their deportation under the Proclamation.

“Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion.

He highlighted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted on social media a post from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele who highlighted a headline about the judge’s order and wrote “Oopsie … Too late” with a laughing face emoji.

What followed was “obstructionism” and “stonewalling” from the government, according to Boasberg, as officials refused to answer basic questions about the timeline of the flights and whether the plaintiffs who were granted class status in the lawsuit were now in El Salvador’s custody. The government argued such information would compromise national security.

Boasberg denied the government’s motion to block his temporary restraining order, and an appeals court upheld it.

Supreme Court ruling

The Trump administration then appealed to the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 5-4 on April 8 that Trump could use the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants but must provide them a chance to challenge their cases first.

Boasberg addressed that ruling in his opinion Wednesday, writing that even a win on appeal did not negate the government’s responsibility to obey the order while it was active.

“If a party chooses to disobey the order — rather than wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process — such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order,” he wrote.

Disputed gang membership

Family members and attorneys for many of the deported men have disputed the Trump administration’s claims that those taken to El Salvador were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

They claim the men were deported because ICE agents misinterpreted their tattoos. Many deportees had no criminal record and were in asylum hearings before an immigration judge, they added.

Among those deported was El Salvadoran native Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose wife, a U.S. citizen, has been fighting in a separate federal case for his release from CECOT. Abrego Garcia had a protective order from an immigration judge in 2019 shielding him from removal to his native country because of risks of gang violence.

The Trump administration has not complied with a court order to return him to the U.S. 

A crowd gathered outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Tuesday, April 10, 2025, to protest the government's erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, to a mega-prison in the Central American country. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday ordered a defiant Trump administration to provide evidence about how it has tried to secure the release of an immigrant mistakenly deported to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, saying that to date, the record shows “nothing has been done.”

District Judge Paula Xinis laid out a two-week timeline for the government to produce sworn statements on whether and how immigration officials are complying with her previous court order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

“Discovery will bear out whether you have,” Xinis said, referring to the process through which information is disclosed in court. “And if you haven’t, whether it’s a choice or on justified ground.”

“Cancel vacation, cancel other appointments. I’m usually very good about things like that in my courtroom, but not this time,” she said during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, had ordered the administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. by April 7.

A federal appeals court swiftly upheld Xinis’ order. The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 9-0 Thursday that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return — though they stopped short of requiring it — and provide the El Salvadoran due process through the U.S. immigration courts.

The Supreme Court “could not have been clearer,” Xinis said to Drew Ensign, the deputy assistant attorney general who represented the government Tuesday.

Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, who lived with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, and their 5-year-old child, was apprehended by immigration officials in mid-March.

He was among roughly 260 Venezuelan men the U.S. flew on commercial jets, without due process, to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Garcia has no criminal history in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country, according to court filings in the lawsuit Vasquez Sura brought against the government last month.

An immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 shielding his return to El Salvador because of near certainty he would face violence and persecution.

White House echoes Bukele

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in court documents that Abrego Garcia’s removal on March 15 was an “administrative error.”

The White House maintains it has no power to ask El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia from CECOT, and that Xinis overstepped her authority in ordering the administration to conduct foreign affairs.

The White House also asserts Abrego Garcia is a “foreign terrorist” and a member of the El Salvadoran gang MS-13, which the administration designated a foreign terrorist organization in February.

“Deporting him was always going to be the end result,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at the daily press briefing.

“There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland,” she said.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told journalists Monday during a visit to the Oval Office, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” labeling Abrego Garcia as a “terrorist.”

The government echoed Bukele’s comments in its daily status report.

“DHS does not have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation,” Joseph Mazarra, acting general counsel for DHS, wrote in Monday’s report.

Following a tense hearing Friday, where the government refused to provide the whereabouts of Abrego Garcia, Xinis ordered the administration to provide the daily updates.

On Tuesday, Xinis told Ensign that the government has provided “very little information of any value” in the reports.

“As a factual matter, I do need evidence in this record because to date what the record shows is nothing has been done,” Xinis said.

Ruling requested on contempt

Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Vasquez Sura asked the court to order immigration officials to arrange for her husband’s return by the end of April 14.

She also asked the court to mandate government officials provide documents and depositions related to Abrego Garcia’s release, and to show cause as to why Xinis should not hold the government in contempt of court for not complying with orders to bring Abrego Garcia back.

Xinis said she will not make a decision on contempt until she reviews a record of evidence.

The government maintains the Supreme Court’s decision does not mean they must work with El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia because the president, not federal courts, has jurisdiction over foreign affairs.

The administration also contends that the Supreme Court’s use of the term “facilitate” only means that they need to remove “domestic” barriers to bringing Abrego back to the U.S. — not that they would have to work with El Salvador to secure his release.

“Indeed, no other reading of ‘facilitate’ is tenable — or constitutional — here,” they wrote in a response to Vasquez Sura’s request.

In the Oval Office Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. would provide a plane, but cannot force Bukele to release Abrego Garcia.

Ensign provided a transcript of the Oval Office meeting to the court 15 minutes prior to Tuesday’s hearing, according to Xinis.

“I don’t consider what happened yesterday as evidence before this court yet,” Xinis said.

Ensign pushed back on Xinis’ order for expedited discovery, saying that the issue is a “narrow interpretative dispute” of what the word facilitate means that “does not require discovery.”

After pushing back again, Xinis responded, “I just don’t think it’s that difficult. I think you want to make it that difficult because getting to the facts may not be that favorable.”

Seized while looking for work

Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records.

Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.

While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.

The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.

While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C.. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele won’t return a Maryland man the United States erroneously deported to a mega-prison in his Central American country, he said Monday during a visit to the Oval Office.

Sitting beside President Donald Trump, Bukele told reporters, “Of course I’m not going to do it.”

Administration officials present for the meeting defended the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador who had a protective order from a U.S. immigration court shielding him from being sent back to his country because of risks to his life.

The administration admitted in court filings that it deported Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, by mistake.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him, that’s not up to us,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning, provide a plane,” she added.

The Supreme Court issued a 9-0 decision Thursday stating the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Abrego Garcia on March 15 among roughly 260 Venezuelan men the U.S. flew on commercial jets without due process to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

ICE agents apprehended Abrego Garcia near Baltimore on March 12 when he was driving his 5-year-old son home. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services,” according to a court filing.

Garcia has no criminal history in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country, according to the filing.

The Trump administration is paying the El Salvador government $6 million to detain the men, sparking questions over whether the payment violates U.S. human rights law.

Lawyers for many of the Venezuelan men maintain their clients weren’t gang members.

Trump triggered the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, specifically targeting Venezuelans 14 and older who the administration suspected of having ties to the gang Tren de Aragua. 

Trump also told reporters in the Oval Office Monday that he wants to export “homegrown” criminals, as in U.S. citizens, to El Salvador and would be willing to assist Bukele in building more mega prisons.

“I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” said Trump.

Rubio, Miller defend deportation

The administration maintains that immigration courts connected Abrego Garcia in 2019 to the violent El Salvadoran gang MS-13 but makes no mention of the protective order granted to Abrego Garcia by an immigration judge that same year.

In addition to Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller defended Abrego Garcia’s deportation and the administration’s refusal to cooperate with a court order to return him to the U.S.

Miller said Friday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision squarely landed on the side of the administration.

“This was a 9-0 (decision) in our favor against the district court ruling saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States,” Miller told reporters in the Oval Office Monday.

“The ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador’s sole discretion, was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time. No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador,” Miller continued.

Bukele said the idea that El Salvador would return Abrego Garcia is “preposterous.” 

“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said.

The Department of State designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization in February.

Rubio said he doesn’t understand “what the confusion is.”

“This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country,” Rubio said, adding that “foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement Monday calling Bukele’s comments “pure nonsense.”

“The law is clear, due process was grossly violated, and the Supreme Court has clearly spoken that the Trump administration must facilitate and effectuate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He should be returned to the U.S. immediately. 

“Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all,” Schumer said.

Daily updates

Abrego Garcia’s case is winding through the federal courts.

The administration was ordered Friday, after a standoff in court, to provide daily updates on Abrego Garcia’s physical location and status, and what steps the administration has taken or plans to take to facilitate his return.

Abrego Garcia’s wife sued Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and immigration officials in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland last month, alleging her husband received no due process and his removal was unlawful.

District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. by April 7.

A federal appeals court unanimously upheld the lower court’s order on April 7. The Trump administration missed the deadline and immediately appealed to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.

The high court unanimously ruled Thursday that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return but stopped short of requiring his return and did not give a deadline. The court also ordered Xinis to clarify language in the lower court’s ruling to test whether the court overreached into foreign affairs.

Mickey Rottinghaus, 70, of Iowa, told a crowd of protesters she's afraid of her adult son losing Medicaid benefits. The demonstrators, organized by the national advocacy group Fair Share America, protested congressional Republicans' proposed spending cuts outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON —  Hundreds demonstrated outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday, urging congressional Republicans to rethink cutting programs vital to millions of Americans as a way to help extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

The previously scheduled rally, organized by the advocacy coalition Fair Share America, occurred less than an hour after House Republicans, by a narrow margin, adopted a budget resolution that paves the way for negotiations on deep spending cuts as Congress works on an extension of the 2017 tax law.

The advocates, who flew and bused in from 30 states to rally and meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the cuts would be devastating for low-income Americans who rely on government health care, nutrition and early education programs, among other benefits.

A state-by-state report from Democrats last month projected up to 25 million across the country could lose access to Medicaid, a health program that covers medical costs for some low-income people as well as nursing home care, if Republicans successfully pass their proposed cuts to make room in the budget for a roughly $4.5 trillion tax cut extension.

“This is personal to so many of us, and many of you are here from all over the country, Utah, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan,” Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell told the crowd. “This is a national movement where we are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

Lawmakers “need to look us in the eye while they do harm,” Crowell said.

Medicaid ‘was my lifeline’

Cadon Sagendorf of Salt Lake City, Utah, told his story of relying on Medicaid while growing up in the foster care system. Foster youth are automatically eligible for the federally funded health care program administered by the states.

“I was placed into the foster care system at birth and spent 10 days in the NICU withdrawing from meth, marijuana, heroin and cocaine. I was then later adopted seven months later, but at the age of 15, my adoption failed and I was placed back in the foster care system,” said Sagendorf, who is now 23 and studying psychology at the University of Utah.

“Medicaid was not just a policy, it was my lifeline,” Sagendorf said.

In most cases, foster youth who age out of the system at 18 can remain on Medicaid until age 26. Over 100,000 former foster youth received Medicaid in 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Mickey Rottinghaus, 70, of Center Point, Iowa, said she’s scared that her adult son Tucker could lose his Medicaid benefits if Congress follows through with deep spending cuts.

The program pays for a nurse and home health aide to assist him every morning, seven days a week.

Tucker, 50, was left paralyzed after being shot with a .22 caliber handgun at a friend’s apartment in 1994.

“Our family was changed in a matter of moments,” Rottinghaus told the crowd.

For three decades she’s been arranging his care, patching together a daily schedule of nurses paid for by Medicaid, supplementing with care paid for out of pocket and a circle of friends who volunteer to help.

For the past two years, she’s been staying with her son in Waterloo, Iowa, to feed him in the afternoon and get him into bed at night.

“I know that if he didn’t have Medicaid, he wouldn’t be able to have a nurse and a home health aide in the morning,” she told States Newsroom in an interview following her speech.

The ‘hell, no’ Congress

Several House and Senate Democrats spoke to the demonstrators, who wielded signs bearing the messages “Tax the Rich” and “Fair Taxes Now.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon borrowed a sign from the crowd that read “Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything,” referring to billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting agenda.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, I’m a member of the ‘hell, no’ Congress. Are you a member?” he yelled to the crowd.

“When Republicans say, ‘We are going to slash Medicaid,’ we say, ‘Hell no,’” he said, prompting the crowd to say it with him.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said “a budget is not just a fiscal document, it’s a moral document.”

“Show me your budget and I’ll show you who you think matters and who you think is dispensable. Show me your budget and I’ll show you what you think about children, what you think about workers, what you think made America great. And if this budget that they are trying to pass were an EKG, it would suggest that the Congress has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery,” Warnock said.

On the hunt for spending cuts

House and Senate Republican leaders announced Thursday they agreed to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. GOP House lawmakers have been instructed to find $880 billion in cuts to programs under the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which holds jurisdiction over Medicaid, among other areas.

The budget instructions that will guide the coming months of negotiations also direct the House Committee on Education and Workforce to find $330 billion in cuts, and the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over government food programs, including SNAP, to find $230 billion in cuts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed the passage of the budget blueprint Thursday morning as “a big victory” and “a big day for us.”

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, maintains that letting the 2017 tax cuts expire would allow “the largest tax increase in U.S. history all at once.”

“We have a responsibility to get our country back on a sound fiscal trajectory and also make sure that we ensure and protect those essential programs,” he said.

People demonstrate in support of federal workers outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fired federal probationary workers saw setbacks this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeals court dealt blows in two separate cases, leaving the newly hired or recently promoted employees hit by the administration’s mass firings once again in limbo.

In a case that affected up to 24,000 fired probationary employees across 17 federal agencies, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday blocked a lower court order requiring the government to rehire the workers.

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to stay the order, writing that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Judge Allison Rushing, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, directed the order, with Judge James Wilkinson, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, concurring. Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, dissented.

The case centered on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia, who allege economic harm because the federal government did not provide legally required warning ahead of an influx of unemployed state residents.

Federal Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on April 2 requiring the government to rehire thousands of workers who either lived or reported to work only in the 19 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia while the case moved forward. They included:

• Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The affected agencies included:

• The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The case marked the first time the government provided the number of probationary employees fired at each agency.

Bredar required the figures from the government to show compliance with his mid-March emergency order that the agencies reinstate the workers. The documents showed that the majority of the employees were not recalled to active duty, but placed on administrative leave.

Supreme Court action

In the second case bearing on fired federal workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a lower court order mandating the federal government reinstate the jobs of 16,000 fired probationary federal workers across six agencies.

The unsigned two-page order stated the nine nonprofits that brought the case do not have legal standing. The justices did not address the question at the center of the lawsuit: whether the firings were illegal.

The Trump administration had escalated the case to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket after the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit denied the government’s request to block the agencies from rehiring the employees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California extended his temporary emergency order on March 13, mandating the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs reinstate employees who were fired under a directive from the Office of Personnel Management as part of an agenda by President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.

As the case continues on the lower court track, lawyers for the American Federal of Government Employees, AFL-CIO faced the Trump administration in court Wednesday before Alsup, a Clinton appointee. Alsup ordered both to provide more information by the end of the day Friday, including a comprehensive list of those fired and statements about economic harms. 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Suddenly veering from his declaration a week ago, President Donald Trump on Wednesday paused his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs for 90 days on countries he’s said are willing to negotiate new trade deals.

Stocks surged upon his announcement after days of wrecked markets erased trillions of dollars from investor portfolios. The Nasdaq index saw the biggest single-day hike in five years as of Wednesday afternoon, according to financial media.

The pause will not extend to China, which he announced will see a further hike to 125% on imports to the U.S. “effective immediately,” he said.

“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 Truth Social just after 1 p.m. Eastern.

The president said more than 75 countries have reached out to negotiate, and that because “these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States” he is dropping their tariff rates to a universal 10%.

Several rounds of tariffs the president enacted in March will remain in place, including 25% import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum and cars — charges which sparked the European Union to approve retaliatory tariffs Wednesday.

Canada and Mexico, which both face up to 25% tariffs on a sizable chunk of products, will continue to see the levies but will not face an additional 10% stacked on top.

Trump’s 25% tax on imports from any country that buys oil from Venezuela also remains unchanged.

Americans ‘yippy’

The president told the press outside the White House Wednesday afternoon that he saw people getting “queasy” and “yippy” about the market turmoil.

“You have to have flexibility,” Trump said about his decision to pause the levies.

The tariffs, which the administration maintains are “reciprocal,” though under a formula disputed by economists, went into effect just after midnight Wednesday.

When asked by reporters if he’ll consider exempting any large companies that lost big in the market crash from paying the baseline 10% import tax, Trump said he’ll rely on his “instinct” to make the decision.

The announcement came just hours after the president posted on social media “BE COOL!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”

Trump’s sudden pause also came just after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the steep tariffs to nervous lawmakers for the second day in a row.

Administration officials quickly claimed the sudden pause was part of Trump’s strategy all along — despite several saying over the last few days that the tariffs were here to stay and that Americans needed to have patience as the market crashed. More than half of Americans are invested in the stock market.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller characterized Trump’s about-face on tariffs as “the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history,” in a post on X Wednesday afternoon.

A rollercoaster few days

Trump’s tariff plan sent shock waves through the economy after he unveiled import taxes on trading partners and allies, including 46% for Vietnam, a major tech exporter to the U.S.

The administration calculated the steep tariff rates based on each country’s trade deficit with the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters outside the White House Wednesday that the tariffs were “a successful negotiating strategy.”

“As I told everyone a week ago in this very spot: Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded,” Bessent said.

The administration met with Vietnamese officials Wednesday, according to Bessent, and meetings with Japan, South Korea and India are expected shortly, though he didn’t provide details.

When asked by reporters if Trump’s tariff policy was mainly now focused on China, Bessent said “it’s about bad actors” but added that China “is the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems.”

The trade war — a term Bessent rejected — between the U.S. and China expanded rapidly overnight Wednesday when Chinese officials raised levies on U.S. goods to 84%.

“The US’s practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests and seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system,” according to a translation of a statement Wednesday from the country’s State Council Tariff Commission.

Pressure from lawmakers

A Trump campaign account posted on X a screenshot of the president’s morning message urging people to buy stocks and asked “Did the Panicans listen to @POTUS’s advice this morning?”

“Panicans” is a term Trump used recently to mock lawmakers who openly criticized losses to retirement funds and questioned how the tariffs would affect small businesses in their districts.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma grilled Greer Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance.

“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves wrong?” Tillis asked.

Greer faced questions Wednesday morning from the House Committee on Ways and Means, where Chair Jason Smith of Missouri cheered on Trump’s choice to unleash tariffs on almost every country at once.

Rep. Richard Neal, the panel’s top Democrat, told Greer that his office has been “inundated” with calls from constituents worried about their 401k funds.

“They don’t know what to expect, trillions of dollars of market value being lost even as we meet,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at the morning hearing before Trump called off the tariffs.   

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said Wednesday that he’s asking the White House if any insider trading occurred while Trump was “creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.”

“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell  stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” Schiff wrote on X.

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced a bipartisan bill to claw back Congressional power over trade decisions from the president, who currently has near-unilateral authority.

GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska introduced companion legislation in the House.

While Trump imposed some of his tariffs — including those on foreign steel and aluminum — under a national security provision, he levied the charges on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as his recent worldwide tariffs by declaring a national emergency. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 26, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sided with The Associated Press Tuesday in a case alleging the Trump administration denied the wire service access to restricted spaces in the White House due to its editorial decision to continue using the term “Gulf of Mexico” rather than “Gulf of America.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden for the District of Columbia granted the AP a preliminary injunction on the merits of the case. McFadden wrote that the news outlet is likely to succeed on its First Amendment and retaliation arguments in further court proceedings, and that the White House’s action has caused irreparable harm to the news agency.

The legal battle tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

The injunction orders the White House to immediately rescind the denial of AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and “other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.”

The order also states the administration’s press team “shall immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial of the AP’s access to events open to all credentialed White House journalists.”

The mandate will remain in place while the case is carried out at the district court level, though the White House is likely to appeal the case.

In his 41-page order, McFadden, appointed by Trump in his first term in office, stated the analysis of the AP’s arguments is “straightforward” and that ramifications for the organization have “undoubtedly been adverse.”

“The AP made an editorial decision to continue using ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in its Stylebook. The Government responded publicly with displeasure and explicitly announced it was curtailing the AP’s access to the Oval Office, press pool events, and East Room activities. If there is a benign explanation for the Government’s decision, it has not been presented here,” McFadden wrote.

The AP and the Trump administration presented evidence to McFadden during a March 27 hearing.

The judge contends in his order that the AP clearly showed that its print reporters “have been systematically and almost completely excluded from events open to the broader White House press corps since February 13, while its photographers have suffered curtailed access.”

“The Government declined to offer witnesses in rebuttal. The Court credits the detailed timeline that the AP built through testimony and evidence,” he wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond for comment.

Trump and administration officials also did not immediately react on social media.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 22, 2025, over President Donald Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday grilled the Trump administration and the attorney for transgender service members who won a lower court order reversing President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops.

One judge on the panel voiced serious concerns about the lack of evidence the Defense Department cited when instituting the ban, while another expressed skepticism that the lower court’s nationwide order — instead of applying only to the transgender individuals who brought the case — was appropriate.

Administration officials appealed the case to the D.C. Circuit after district Judge Ana Reyes, appointed by former President Joe Biden, granted a broad preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order.

Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military.

Trump’s January order asserted the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

The Trump administration is expected to “imminently” escalate a separate case on the same issue to the Supreme Court, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Jason Manion said in court Tuesday.

Evidence

Judges on the appeals bench queried both sides on whether the government has evidence to prove transgender individuals cannot fulfill military duties, and if the order bans all trans troops or only those diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis involving distress when a person’s gender identity differs from their sex at birth.

“If the military said people with red hair are just too fragile and vulnerable, we are going to kick them all out of the military, and we are going to not allow any of them ever to join, and we have no evidence of that, but we think they’re a threat to military preparedness, to unit cohesion, and too costly, and so we’re just going to kick them out?” asked Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Manion replied the transgender ban “policy relies on a condition that is marked by severe clinical distress.”

Under military deference — meaning the courts generally defer to the president and military on national security questions — the judges should accept Trump’s and Hegseth’s word on the policy, Manion said.

“If there are mental conditions that will impair someone’s ability to function in the military, or that the military could rationally judge would impair that, then that’s more than enough to satisfy rational basis review,” he said.

Pillard pushed back: Isn’t that the case for all people wanting to join the military, not just transgender individuals? Thousands of transgender troops are already serving, she said.

“If the concerns are with depression or suicidality, there already are standards that would screen someone out for those things, right?” Pillard said.

Trial court ‘overreach’?

Judge Neomi Rao challenged the plaintiffs’ likelihood to succeed, highlighting that the Supreme Court generally views broad orders from district judges as “overreach.”

Reyes’ order covers all transgender troops and those seeking to enlist, not just the eight plaintiffs who brought the case.

“The district court imposed effectively a universal injunction on this policy, going beyond any relief to these particular plaintiffs. So even putting aside the constitutional question, isn’t the government likely to succeed on challenging this remedy?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Shannon Minter, civil rights attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the very nature of the injury” justifies far-reaching court protection.

“This is one of those cases where the injury alleged resides directly in the categorical nature of the policy itself, which declares that transgender people as a group lack the virtues of honesty, discipline, selflessness, integrity, that as such, they have to be purged from the military because they’re transgender, and because the government has this very negative view of what it means to be a transgender person,” Minter said.

In a separate case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.

U.S. Supreme Court case upcoming

Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed during Trump’s first term, asked Manion, “Can you tell us anything about the government’s plans for seeking Supreme Court (review)?”

“I can’t give you an exact date, but it will be very, very quickly, very soon, and I think that may well be quite relevant to this court’s analysis as well,” Manion said.

Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying they “stand ready to continue to zealously represent our clients as we have at every juncture.”

“Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard. The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

The U.S. Supreme Court early Saturday temporarily blocked a new round of deportations under the wartime Alien Enemies Act until the high court considers the case of several migrants in Texas whose lawyers say are at risk for “imminent removal.”

The justices issued the one-page order just after 1 a.m. Eastern, directing the government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

The order was unsigned and noted conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. 

The rare overnight order followed a flurry of activity Friday after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the migrants’ appeal for a temporary restraining order.

A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas on Thursday denied the petitioners were at “imminent risk of summary removal” because immigration officials said in a previous court filing they would not deport the migrants until the district court resolved allegations that the removals are illegal.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter Friday after the group said their clients were “loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport,” violating an earlier ruling from the justices.

The attorneys for Venezuelan men held at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, “learned that officers at Bluebonnet have distributed notices under the Alien Enemies Act, in English only, that designate Venezuelan men for removal under the AEA, and have told the men that the removals are imminent and will happen today.”

“These removals could therefore occur at any moment,” the ACLU wrote in its application.

President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in mid-March to trigger the removals of the Venezuelans age 14 and up whom the administration suspected had ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

The deportation flights sparked a legal challenge separately winding through the federal courts. Family members of many of the Venezuelan men say they have no gang ties and have been illegally deported without due process.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 17, 2025, over the White House denying The Associated Press journalists from certain spaces open to other journalists. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press and the Trump administration faced tough questioning in court Thursday as the White House fights to block a lower court order mandating officials stop denying the wire outlet entry to spaces where other journalists are permitted.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia grilled the parties at length on how the First Amendment applies to journalists in the Oval Office and other areas, and whether the president can decide which journalists follow him in the press pool and exclude others based on their viewpoint.

The case, playing out at the district court level as well, tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden sided with the AP on April 8 on the grounds that the Trump administration violated the wire service’s First Amendment rights when it publicly retaliated against the agency for an editorial decision to continue using “Gulf of Mexico” in its reporting and influential stylebook.

Oval Office not for ‘silent retreat’

Before the appeals court Thursday, Eric D. McArthur, representing the government, argued against McFadden’s “unprecedented” preliminary injunction, saying it interferes with the president’s “autonomy” in “highly restricted spaces.”

Pointing out the AP was not demanding access “when the president wants to concentrate on his writing and his work,” Judge Corenlia Pillard said “it’s a little confusing to me when you say a place of ‘autonomy.’”

“You make the Oval sound like a place of silent retreat,” said Pillard, who was appointed to the appeals bench during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Pillard also highlighted the expectation of privacy is different for people in “high public office.”

“There’s already a dozen people in there, so he’s agreed to have a press pool,” she said during McArthur’s roughly 45-minute questioning.

The administration argued in its emergency appeal to block the ruling that Trump will be “irreparably injured” if the higher court doesn’t stay the lower court order while it adjudicates the case.

Officials also countered that the First Amendment protects the president’s right to choose which journalists enter the Oval Office, Air Force One or Mar-a-Lago based on the content of their coverage.

Where’s the distinction?

Charles Tobin, attorney for the AP, argued that the White House has “brazenly excluded” AP reporters and photographers from opportunities open to other journalists.

McFadden “appropriately and very narrowly tailored” his injunction, Tobin said. The lower judge ruled that, under the First Amendment, once the White House opens doors for all journalists to spaces including the Oval Office and East Room, it cannot then exclude them based on viewpoint.

McFadden explicitly wrote his ruling does not mandate journalists be given access to the president or that the president cannot choose which outlets to grant exclusive interviews.

Judge Neomi Rao said, “the AP concedes he could choose journalists based on viewpoint for exclusive interviews.”

“When you’re talking about 10 or 12 journalists in the Oval or on his plane or in his home at Mar-a-Lago, what is the distinction?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first presidency.

Tobin replied that the pool is a system that invites numerous journalists to participate on a rotating basis.

“That’s exactly where the distinction lies,” he said.

Private invitations allowable

Judge Gregory Katsas presented other scenarios when the president could invite only “supportive” members of the public and press, for example in the Cabinet room for a policy rollout.

Tobin argued if the event is open to all press members, the president cannot discriminate based on viewpoint.

“Once you have a system of rotation, that’s when the viewpoint becomes anathema,” Tobin replied.

What if the president “tapped (certain reporters) on the shoulder” and invited only them into the Oval Office, asked Katsas, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Tobin replied the president could handpick reporters for a private interview in the Oval Office, as long as it wasn’t an event open to the wider press pool.

“This seems awfully close to what’s happening here,” Katsas said.

Wire position axed

On Wednesday the White House announced a new media policy placing restrictions on all wire services’ access to the Oval Office and other spaces. Other wire services include Bloomberg and AFP.

Despite McFadden’s court order, the White House on Monday denied entry to an AP reporter and photographer to an Oval Office press conference between Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

The AP filed a motion in district court Wednesday requesting McFadden to enforce his preliminary injunction.

McFadden has scheduled a hearing for Friday.

The White House began denying the AP entry to the Oval Office, East Room and other places on Feb. 11.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced in late February that White House officials would take over pool rotation decisions from the White House Correspondents Association, a member organization that has self-governed journalist rotations and briefing seats placement since the Eisenhower administration.

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 4:04 p.m. Eastern.

WASHINGTON —  A federal judge in Washington found probable cause Wednesday the Trump administration is in contempt of court for defying his order to stop flights of Venezuelan immigrants headed to a prison in El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg gave officials one week to submit a list of steps they have taken, or will take, to comply with his order, or identify the official or officials who chose to send the planes to El Salvador, despite learning of his order, he wrote in a 46-page opinion Wednesday.

Boasberg wrote the government could “purge its contempt,” for example, by voluntarily obeying the order and giving the imprisoned men an opportunity to challenge their cases. Officials could also “propose other methods of coming into compliance.”

If the government does not attempt to remedy the situation, Boasberg will require declarations, or even live witness testimony, to identify who’s responsible for the noncompliance and refer them for criminal prosecution.

The case centers on President Donald Trump’s decision in mid-March to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 200 Venezuelans – and other nationals – with suspected gang ties. The men were detained at the Salvadoran mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Despite Boasberg’s order to halt the flights, including returning two planes that were mid-air, immigration officials allowed them to land in El Salvador — and directed a third one to take off.

Boasberg wrote Wednesday that the “Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” continued Boasberg, who was appointed to the bench in 2011 by former President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

Order ‘gleefully’ violated

Boasberg provided a detailed timeline in a memorandum opinion Wednesday accompanying his probable cause order.

The judge delivered a verbal order at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, mandating the government halt any new deportation flights and bring any planes that had taken off back to the U.S. He later entered a written order into the record at 7:25 p.m., according to the court filing.

“By mid-Sunday morning, the picture of what had happened the previous night came into clearer focus,” he wrote. “It appeared that the Government had transferred members of the Plaintiff class into El Salvador’s custody hours after this Court’s injunction prohibited their deportation under the Proclamation.

“Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion.

He highlighted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted on social media a post from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele who highlighted a headline about the judge’s order and wrote “Oopsie … Too late” with a laughing face emoji.

What followed was “obstructionism” and “stonewalling” from the government, according to Boasberg, as officials refused to answer basic questions about the timeline of the flights and whether the plaintiffs who were granted class status in the lawsuit were now in El Salvador’s custody. The government argued such information would compromise national security.

Boasberg denied the government’s motion to block his temporary restraining order, and an appeals court upheld it.

Supreme Court ruling

The Trump administration then appealed to the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 5-4 on April 8 that Trump could use the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants but must provide them a chance to challenge their cases first.

Boasberg addressed that ruling in his opinion Wednesday, writing that even a win on appeal did not negate the government’s responsibility to obey the order while it was active.

“If a party chooses to disobey the order — rather than wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process — such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order,” he wrote.

Disputed gang membership

Family members and attorneys for many of the deported men have disputed the Trump administration’s claims that those taken to El Salvador were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

They claim the men were deported because ICE agents misinterpreted their tattoos. Many deportees had no criminal record and were in asylum hearings before an immigration judge, they added.

Among those deported was El Salvadoran native Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose wife, a U.S. citizen, has been fighting in a separate federal case for his release from CECOT. Abrego Garcia had a protective order from an immigration judge in 2019 shielding him from removal to his native country because of risks of gang violence.

The Trump administration has not complied with a court order to return him to the U.S. 

A crowd gathered outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Tuesday, April 10, 2025, to protest the government's erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, to a mega-prison in the Central American country. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday ordered a defiant Trump administration to provide evidence about how it has tried to secure the release of an immigrant mistakenly deported to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, saying that to date, the record shows “nothing has been done.”

District Judge Paula Xinis laid out a two-week timeline for the government to produce sworn statements on whether and how immigration officials are complying with her previous court order to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

“Discovery will bear out whether you have,” Xinis said, referring to the process through which information is disclosed in court. “And if you haven’t, whether it’s a choice or on justified ground.”

“Cancel vacation, cancel other appointments. I’m usually very good about things like that in my courtroom, but not this time,” she said during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, had ordered the administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. by April 7.

A federal appeals court swiftly upheld Xinis’ order. The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 9-0 Thursday that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return — though they stopped short of requiring it — and provide the El Salvadoran due process through the U.S. immigration courts.

The Supreme Court “could not have been clearer,” Xinis said to Drew Ensign, the deputy assistant attorney general who represented the government Tuesday.

Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, who lived with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, and their 5-year-old child, was apprehended by immigration officials in mid-March.

He was among roughly 260 Venezuelan men the U.S. flew on commercial jets, without due process, to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Garcia has no criminal history in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country, according to court filings in the lawsuit Vasquez Sura brought against the government last month.

An immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 shielding his return to El Salvador because of near certainty he would face violence and persecution.

White House echoes Bukele

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in court documents that Abrego Garcia’s removal on March 15 was an “administrative error.”

The White House maintains it has no power to ask El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia from CECOT, and that Xinis overstepped her authority in ordering the administration to conduct foreign affairs.

The White House also asserts Abrego Garcia is a “foreign terrorist” and a member of the El Salvadoran gang MS-13, which the administration designated a foreign terrorist organization in February.

“Deporting him was always going to be the end result,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at the daily press briefing.

“There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland,” she said.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told journalists Monday during a visit to the Oval Office, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” labeling Abrego Garcia as a “terrorist.”

The government echoed Bukele’s comments in its daily status report.

“DHS does not have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation,” Joseph Mazarra, acting general counsel for DHS, wrote in Monday’s report.

Following a tense hearing Friday, where the government refused to provide the whereabouts of Abrego Garcia, Xinis ordered the administration to provide the daily updates.

On Tuesday, Xinis told Ensign that the government has provided “very little information of any value” in the reports.

“As a factual matter, I do need evidence in this record because to date what the record shows is nothing has been done,” Xinis said.

Ruling requested on contempt

Prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Vasquez Sura asked the court to order immigration officials to arrange for her husband’s return by the end of April 14.

She also asked the court to mandate government officials provide documents and depositions related to Abrego Garcia’s release, and to show cause as to why Xinis should not hold the government in contempt of court for not complying with orders to bring Abrego Garcia back.

Xinis said she will not make a decision on contempt until she reviews a record of evidence.

The government maintains the Supreme Court’s decision does not mean they must work with El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia because the president, not federal courts, has jurisdiction over foreign affairs.

The administration also contends that the Supreme Court’s use of the term “facilitate” only means that they need to remove “domestic” barriers to bringing Abrego back to the U.S. — not that they would have to work with El Salvador to secure his release.

“Indeed, no other reading of ‘facilitate’ is tenable — or constitutional — here,” they wrote in a response to Vasquez Sura’s request.

In the Oval Office Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. would provide a plane, but cannot force Bukele to release Abrego Garcia.

Ensign provided a transcript of the Oval Office meeting to the court 15 minutes prior to Tuesday’s hearing, according to Xinis.

“I don’t consider what happened yesterday as evidence before this court yet,” Xinis said.

Ensign pushed back on Xinis’ order for expedited discovery, saying that the issue is a “narrow interpretative dispute” of what the word facilitate means that “does not require discovery.”

After pushing back again, Xinis responded, “I just don’t think it’s that difficult. I think you want to make it that difficult because getting to the facts may not be that favorable.”

Seized while looking for work

Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records.

Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.

While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.

The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.

While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C.. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele won’t return a Maryland man the United States erroneously deported to a mega-prison in his Central American country, he said Monday during a visit to the Oval Office.

Sitting beside President Donald Trump, Bukele told reporters, “Of course I’m not going to do it.”

Administration officials present for the meeting defended the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador who had a protective order from a U.S. immigration court shielding him from being sent back to his country because of risks to his life.

The administration admitted in court filings that it deported Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, by mistake.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him, that’s not up to us,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning, provide a plane,” she added.

The Supreme Court issued a 9-0 decision Thursday stating the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Abrego Garcia on March 15 among roughly 260 Venezuelan men the U.S. flew on commercial jets without due process to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

ICE agents apprehended Abrego Garcia near Baltimore on March 12 when he was driving his 5-year-old son home. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services,” according to a court filing.

Garcia has no criminal history in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country, according to the filing.

The Trump administration is paying the El Salvador government $6 million to detain the men, sparking questions over whether the payment violates U.S. human rights law.

Lawyers for many of the Venezuelan men maintain their clients weren’t gang members.

Trump triggered the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, specifically targeting Venezuelans 14 and older who the administration suspected of having ties to the gang Tren de Aragua. 

Trump also told reporters in the Oval Office Monday that he wants to export “homegrown” criminals, as in U.S. citizens, to El Salvador and would be willing to assist Bukele in building more mega prisons.

“I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” said Trump.

Rubio, Miller defend deportation

The administration maintains that immigration courts connected Abrego Garcia in 2019 to the violent El Salvadoran gang MS-13 but makes no mention of the protective order granted to Abrego Garcia by an immigration judge that same year.

In addition to Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller defended Abrego Garcia’s deportation and the administration’s refusal to cooperate with a court order to return him to the U.S.

Miller said Friday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision squarely landed on the side of the administration.

“This was a 9-0 (decision) in our favor against the district court ruling saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States,” Miller told reporters in the Oval Office Monday.

“The ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador’s sole discretion, was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time. No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador,” Miller continued.

Bukele said the idea that El Salvador would return Abrego Garcia is “preposterous.” 

“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said.

The Department of State designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization in February.

Rubio said he doesn’t understand “what the confusion is.”

“This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country,” Rubio said, adding that “foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement Monday calling Bukele’s comments “pure nonsense.”

“The law is clear, due process was grossly violated, and the Supreme Court has clearly spoken that the Trump administration must facilitate and effectuate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He should be returned to the U.S. immediately. 

“Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all,” Schumer said.

Daily updates

Abrego Garcia’s case is winding through the federal courts.

The administration was ordered Friday, after a standoff in court, to provide daily updates on Abrego Garcia’s physical location and status, and what steps the administration has taken or plans to take to facilitate his return.

Abrego Garcia’s wife sued Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and immigration officials in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland last month, alleging her husband received no due process and his removal was unlawful.

District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. by April 7.

A federal appeals court unanimously upheld the lower court’s order on April 7. The Trump administration missed the deadline and immediately appealed to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.

The high court unanimously ruled Thursday that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return but stopped short of requiring his return and did not give a deadline. The court also ordered Xinis to clarify language in the lower court’s ruling to test whether the court overreached into foreign affairs.

Mickey Rottinghaus, 70, of Iowa, told a crowd of protesters she's afraid of her adult son losing Medicaid benefits. The demonstrators, organized by the national advocacy group Fair Share America, protested congressional Republicans' proposed spending cuts outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON —  Hundreds demonstrated outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday, urging congressional Republicans to rethink cutting programs vital to millions of Americans as a way to help extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

The previously scheduled rally, organized by the advocacy coalition Fair Share America, occurred less than an hour after House Republicans, by a narrow margin, adopted a budget resolution that paves the way for negotiations on deep spending cuts as Congress works on an extension of the 2017 tax law.

The advocates, who flew and bused in from 30 states to rally and meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, say the cuts would be devastating for low-income Americans who rely on government health care, nutrition and early education programs, among other benefits.

A state-by-state report from Democrats last month projected up to 25 million across the country could lose access to Medicaid, a health program that covers medical costs for some low-income people as well as nursing home care, if Republicans successfully pass their proposed cuts to make room in the budget for a roughly $4.5 trillion tax cut extension.

“This is personal to so many of us, and many of you are here from all over the country, Utah, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan,” Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell told the crowd. “This is a national movement where we are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

Lawmakers “need to look us in the eye while they do harm,” Crowell said.

Medicaid ‘was my lifeline’

Cadon Sagendorf of Salt Lake City, Utah, told his story of relying on Medicaid while growing up in the foster care system. Foster youth are automatically eligible for the federally funded health care program administered by the states.

“I was placed into the foster care system at birth and spent 10 days in the NICU withdrawing from meth, marijuana, heroin and cocaine. I was then later adopted seven months later, but at the age of 15, my adoption failed and I was placed back in the foster care system,” said Sagendorf, who is now 23 and studying psychology at the University of Utah.

“Medicaid was not just a policy, it was my lifeline,” Sagendorf said.

In most cases, foster youth who age out of the system at 18 can remain on Medicaid until age 26. Over 100,000 former foster youth received Medicaid in 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Mickey Rottinghaus, 70, of Center Point, Iowa, said she’s scared that her adult son Tucker could lose his Medicaid benefits if Congress follows through with deep spending cuts.

The program pays for a nurse and home health aide to assist him every morning, seven days a week.

Tucker, 50, was left paralyzed after being shot with a .22 caliber handgun at a friend’s apartment in 1994.

“Our family was changed in a matter of moments,” Rottinghaus told the crowd.

For three decades she’s been arranging his care, patching together a daily schedule of nurses paid for by Medicaid, supplementing with care paid for out of pocket and a circle of friends who volunteer to help.

For the past two years, she’s been staying with her son in Waterloo, Iowa, to feed him in the afternoon and get him into bed at night.

“I know that if he didn’t have Medicaid, he wouldn’t be able to have a nurse and a home health aide in the morning,” she told States Newsroom in an interview following her speech.

The ‘hell, no’ Congress

Several House and Senate Democrats spoke to the demonstrators, who wielded signs bearing the messages “Tax the Rich” and “Fair Taxes Now.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon borrowed a sign from the crowd that read “Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything,” referring to billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting agenda.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, I’m a member of the ‘hell, no’ Congress. Are you a member?” he yelled to the crowd.

“When Republicans say, ‘We are going to slash Medicaid,’ we say, ‘Hell no,’” he said, prompting the crowd to say it with him.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said “a budget is not just a fiscal document, it’s a moral document.”

“Show me your budget and I’ll show you who you think matters and who you think is dispensable. Show me your budget and I’ll show you what you think about children, what you think about workers, what you think made America great. And if this budget that they are trying to pass were an EKG, it would suggest that the Congress has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery,” Warnock said.

On the hunt for spending cuts

House and Senate Republican leaders announced Thursday they agreed to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. GOP House lawmakers have been instructed to find $880 billion in cuts to programs under the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which holds jurisdiction over Medicaid, among other areas.

The budget instructions that will guide the coming months of negotiations also direct the House Committee on Education and Workforce to find $330 billion in cuts, and the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over government food programs, including SNAP, to find $230 billion in cuts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed the passage of the budget blueprint Thursday morning as “a big victory” and “a big day for us.”

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, maintains that letting the 2017 tax cuts expire would allow “the largest tax increase in U.S. history all at once.”

“We have a responsibility to get our country back on a sound fiscal trajectory and also make sure that we ensure and protect those essential programs,” he said.

People demonstrate in support of federal workers outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fired federal probationary workers saw setbacks this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeals court dealt blows in two separate cases, leaving the newly hired or recently promoted employees hit by the administration’s mass firings once again in limbo.

In a case that affected up to 24,000 fired probationary employees across 17 federal agencies, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday blocked a lower court order requiring the government to rehire the workers.

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to stay the order, writing that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Judge Allison Rushing, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, directed the order, with Judge James Wilkinson, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, concurring. Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, dissented.

The case centered on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia, who allege economic harm because the federal government did not provide legally required warning ahead of an influx of unemployed state residents.

Federal Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on April 2 requiring the government to rehire thousands of workers who either lived or reported to work only in the 19 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia while the case moved forward. They included:

• Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The affected agencies included:

• The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The case marked the first time the government provided the number of probationary employees fired at each agency.

Bredar required the figures from the government to show compliance with his mid-March emergency order that the agencies reinstate the workers. The documents showed that the majority of the employees were not recalled to active duty, but placed on administrative leave.

Supreme Court action

In the second case bearing on fired federal workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a lower court order mandating the federal government reinstate the jobs of 16,000 fired probationary federal workers across six agencies.

The unsigned two-page order stated the nine nonprofits that brought the case do not have legal standing. The justices did not address the question at the center of the lawsuit: whether the firings were illegal.

The Trump administration had escalated the case to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket after the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit denied the government’s request to block the agencies from rehiring the employees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California extended his temporary emergency order on March 13, mandating the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs reinstate employees who were fired under a directive from the Office of Personnel Management as part of an agenda by President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.

As the case continues on the lower court track, lawyers for the American Federal of Government Employees, AFL-CIO faced the Trump administration in court Wednesday before Alsup, a Clinton appointee. Alsup ordered both to provide more information by the end of the day Friday, including a comprehensive list of those fired and statements about economic harms.