“A Rhode Island doctor who is an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported to Lebanon even though a judge had issued an order blocking the U.S. visa holder’s immediate removal from the country, according to court papers.
The expulsion of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is set to be the focus of a hearing on Monday before a federal judge in Boston, who on Sunday demanded information on whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection had “willfully” disobeyed his order.”
“Any decision by the administration to defy federal courts would immediately implicate profound constitutional questions about separation of powers that have kept each branch of the government in check for centuries. That’s in large part because it would test the power of courts to enforce rulings that are supposed to be the final word.
The issue reached a fever pitch on over the weekend when the Trump administration deported hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador despite a federal judge’s order that the 19th Century Alien Enemies Act could not be used.”
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“Legal experts say there are few options to force compliance with its pronouncements. Judges could hold an agency or official in civil or criminal contempt – but that’s about it.
Fears that the Trump administration might deliberately break into a pattern of not following judicial rulings with which it disagrees were amplified last month when a federal judge in Rhode Island, for the second time, told the Trump administration it can’t cut off grant and loan payments after Democratic-led states complained that the administration wasn’t obeying the judge’s previous court order.”
“The flights suggest the Trump administration may be growing more brazen in its defiance of judicial restraint. The U.S. Constitution established the judiciary as a co-equal and independent branch of government.
Trump has sought to push the boundaries of executive power since taking office in January, cutting spending authorized by Congress, dismantling agencies and firing tens of thousands of federal workers.”
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“On Monday, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said the flights were already in international airspace when the judge’s orders came and that more flights would continue.
“Once you’re outside the border, you know, it is what it is. But they’re in international waters, already on the way south, close to landing. You know what? … We did what we had to do,” he told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program.
Asked what was next, Homan said: “Another flight, another flight every day.”
“We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think,” he added.”
“Monitoring groups including Syria Network for Human Rights (SNHR) – an independent UK-based group – said over 1,000 people died in the violence, more than half killed by forces aligned with the new authorities and others by Assad loyalists. SNHR said the dead included 595 civilians and unarmed fighters, the vast majority Alawite.”
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“The mass killings were mostly carried out by gunmen from various factions aligned with the new government, including GSS, according to several of the witnesses.”
“Before deregulation, a cross-country flight could cost thousands of dollars (inflation adjusted) and would take all day. Afterward, travelers benefited from myriad choices that dropped prices and promoted innovation in scheduling and aircraft design.
It’s not as bougie to fly these days, but almost everyone can now afford to do it. Yet the nostalgia never ends. “The professor obviously never talked to passengers, pilots, flight crews, investors and airline executives,” author Rene Henry argued last year. “All were happy with regulation and the way things were.”
Of course, passengers, pilots, airline executives, and investors liked the old system. Passengers were usually wealthy or engaged in business travel. Airlines didn’t have to worry about upstart competitors. Investors were largely guaranteed a huge return. For the rest of Americans, well, they were stuck taking Greyhound or driving. The number of airline travelers increased from 383 million in 1970 to 4.4 billion today.”
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“Carter also signed laws deregulating trucking, rail, and telecommunications, which paved the way for transformative innovations that have vastly improved our lives. “He set up cabinet-level oversight councils to review the new agencies’ most important regulatory proposals and to encourage more cost-effective forms of regulation,” wrote Susan Dudley in an article appropriately title, “Jimmy Carter, The Great Deregulator.”
Many of us remember when Vice President Al Gore, who during a 1999 interview when he was running for president, boastfully said, “I took the initiative in creating the Internet” based on legislation he authored in Congress. Carter never claimed to help create the resulting technologies, which emanated from private-sector savants. But he helped enable everything from FedEx to the iPhone by dismantling government rules that impeded these developments.
“Freight deregulation was key to our modern, robust supply chains where customers can find just about anything in retail stores across the country, and next-day shipping is the norm,” explained the transportation journal Freight Waves in its remembrance of Carter.
Many progressives and populists now complain about the results of these emergent industries as they ramp up antitrust efforts and wax poetically about an ideal past that never existed. Criticize Carter if you choose, but much of the progress we take for granted would never have emerged without deregulation. He wasn’t only a fine man, but a notable president.”
“Trump’s administration axed temporary protections for Venezuelan immigrants in the early days of his second term. In less than a month, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans nationally stand to lose temporary protected status, opening them up to deportation — leaving South Florida Republican Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez scrambling to try to convince Trump to change his mind.”
“2024 was the hottest year in the instrumental record. How hot? Last year the global average temperature rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 19th century pre-industrial mean, according to most of the scientific organizations that track global temperature trends. This exceeds, for the first time, the aspirational goal set forth by the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement to limit the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Each of the 10 hottest years have come over the past decade.”
“The repression began in 2018 when Ortega’s regime went after the Catholic Church for mediating between the state and anti-government protesters. Since then, targeted retaliation has grown into a full-scale assault on religious freedom.
“The government initially targeted the Catholic Church because it provided sanctuary to demonstrators, and clergy voiced opposition to the government’s human rights abuses,” reports the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “More recently, the government’s actions have led to full-scale shuttering of the Church’s activities, mass imprisonments, and the targeting of multiple other religious groups.”
Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have accused church leaders of being “agents of evil” engaged in “spiritual terrorism.” They claim the clergy is inciting civil unrest and planning to overthrow the regime.
The consequences for religious groups—Catholics and others—have been devastating. Since 2018, over 1,100 religious entities have been forcibly closed, more than 70 individuals detained for their religious affiliations, and 84 priests forced into exile.
Surveillance and harassment of church leaders have become ubiquitous, with the Ministry of Interior imposing strict controls on religious activities and regulating visits from foreign clergy, according to the ICC. Easter processions, Christmas celebrations, and even cemetery prayers have all been outlawed.”
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“Eighty percent of Nicaraguans identify as Christian, with half being Catholic and 30 percent evangelical. In a country deeply rooted in faith, Ortega’s attack on religion is a calculated effort to suffocate dissent and dismantle spaces of hope and community, tightening his grip on a nation with fewer places left to turn.”