“On Wednesday, The Seattle Times reported federal law enforcement had arrested “two people fighting the Bear Gulch fire on the Olympic Peninsula.”
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Out of 44 crew members onsite, “two individuals were found to be present in the United States illegally, one with a previous order of removal. The two individuals were arrested and transported to the Bellingham Station on charges of illegal entry.”
The arrest was a reversal of federal policy under two presidents. “Absent exigent circumstances, immigration enforcement will not be conducted at locations where disaster and emergency response and relief is being provided,” the Department of Homeland Security announced in 2021, during Joe Biden’s presidency. And in August 2018, under Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) declared it would “suspend routine immigration enforcement operations in the areas affected by” wildfires in northern California, as well as “evacuation sites, or assistance centers such as shelters or food banks.”
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“Hispanic immigrants play a pivotal role in wildfire response,” Reason’s Jeff Luse wrote this week. “Federal officials showing up to job sites and removing these workers from privately contracted crews will very likely delay wildfire response times and put more Americans at risk.”
CBP did not reveal the nationality of the two people arrested. Regardless, it’s especially ironic to arrest two firefighters for immigration offenses while they actively fight a wildfire that, as of Wednesday evening, was only 13 percent contained.
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there is considerable evidence the Trump administration is simply rounding up as many potential deportees as possible, regardless of the actual danger they pose.”
“President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel nearly $5 billion in federal aid without congressional authorization appears to be a straightforward violation of federal law.
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While that spending might be wasteful or foolish, the president does not have the authority to refuse to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress—though the Trump administration seems eager to challenge that limitation on executive power.
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The laws that govern the federal budget process—most importantly, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA)—allow presidents to make rescission requests to Congress. Trump did that earlier this year, and lawmakers followed through by cutting $9 billion in previously approved spending. The law also allows the executive branch to freeze funding for up to 45 days while Congress considers such a request.
Ross Vought, the director of the White House budget office, has argued that the executive branch can use that 45-day window to do exactly what Trump is now attempting: cancel any spending during the final 45 days of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30. “By withholding the cash for that full timeframe—regardless of action by Congress—the White House would treat the funding as expired when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30,” Politico explained earlier this year.
Vought is wrong about that.
“The President has no unilateral authority to impound funds,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in 2018 when it was asked by the House Budget Committee to examine the question of pocket rescissions. “We conclude that the ICA does not permit the impoundment of funds through their date of expiration. The plain language of the ICA permits only the temporary withholding of budget authority and provides that unless Congress rescinds the amounts at issue, they must be made available for obligation.”
Indeed, if the president were allowed to cancel any federal spending within the final 45 days of the fiscal year, then he could effectively cancel any federal spending at any time—by delaying the release of funds until the end of the year, then canceling them.”
“U.S. military operations in space will soon be led from Huntsville, Alabama. President Donald Trump announced he is moving U.S. Space Command headquarters out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, citing the state’s use of mail-in voting as a “big factor” in the decision.
“The problem I had with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting,” Trump said. “When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections … so that played a big factor also.”
Trump also touted his support in conservative Alabama and slammed Colorado’s Democratic governor as he announced the relocation, the latest move in a years-long partisan tussle over the military’s space program.”
So far, the Supreme Court is allowing Trump to use powers that appear to be unconstitutional. The Court has largely done this using the shadow docket, where the court doesn’t need to explain its reasoning.
By allowing the president to create real-world and not fully reversible impacts while acting with clearly unconstitutional powers, the Supreme Court is derelict of its duty as a check on presidential power.
It makes sense to limit injunctions that stop the president when his actions may not even be found unconstitutional in the first place, but if the president can act in any way, and not be stopped until the damage is done, then the Supreme Court is derelict in its duty.
The Supreme Court can act very quickly when it wants to, and it can slow-walk when it wants. Seems like it will do this in favor of Trump and Republicans.
Trump and his associates say clearly why they are doing what they are doing, and then tell the Court that they did it for different reasons. The Court has naively accepted the administration’s legal justifications that conflict with the administration’s clearly spoken motives.
The Constitution does not take into account political parties. The founders did not expect parties when they wrote it. Parties ruin the separation of powers and cause officials to not restrain a president acting illegally, even though it is those officials’ (Congress and the Supreme Court) duty.
“President Donald Trump’s tariff regime is making everything from American-made steel weights, imported yarn, and Amazon’s “everyday essentials” more expensive while his immigration crackdown is causing worker shortages in key industries. These policies will work in tandem to slow down already expensive deliveries of your favorite goods.
“President Donald Trump overstepped the limits of executive authority when he used emergency powers to levy tariffs, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.
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the tariffs in a chaotic state of limbo. Three courts have now ruled that they were unlawfully imposed, and yet they will remain in place (at least for now).
That’s an outcome that seems to create even more uncertainty for American businesses that are bearing the brunt of the tariffs. Rather than providing relief in the form of a new or renewed injuction, the appeals court has effectively said that Trump is illegally taxing nearly all imports into the country and that Americans will have to continue paying those taxes while the rest of the legal process plays out.”
“”Does ‘for cause’ require something more substantial than a mere allegation of wrongdoing, such as a formal charge, or a conviction, or even something else?” asks Reason’s Damon Root in a great piece on the precedent the Supreme Court might lean on (Namely Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) and Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020)). “Here’s another question to ask: Is the mortgage fraud allegation that’s been leveled against Cook merely a pretext designed to cover the fact that Trump is actually firing Cook for illegal political reasons?””