“The senators made clear that spending bills approved by Congress and signed into law by the president must be regarded as law, not an optional recommendation to the executive branch: “Just as the President does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate.”
They said they are “concerned” about “sudden changes to OMB’s interpretation of long-standing statutory provisions,” adding it could be “disruptive to the appropriations process and make it more difficult for the Appropriations Committee to work in a collaborative fashion with the Administration.”
They also scolded Vought for not bringing this issue to them directly: “Collaboration will become even more challenging when the Committee is first informed of such developments through the press, rather than notified through official channels, as was the case here.””
“The government now claims “he had willfully failed to disclose his membership in several organizations, including a United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied to become a permanent U.S. resident last March,” reports The New York Times. “The government also said that Mr. Khalil failed to list his continuing employment with the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, after 2022.” If these allegations are true, they may put the deportation on firmer footing: It is easier for the authorities to argue that the First Amendment isn’t a relevant factor when the issue is whether Khalil disclosed relevant information during a green card application.
But even if that is true, the Justice Department has shown its true motivation, even if it may be able to weasel out of the hole it’s dug. Since it told The Free Press that “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law” and suggested that “he was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.,” it sure seems obvious that it was Khalil’s role in the Columbia protests that attracted ICE agents initially. If officials can now find a better pretense to deport him, that may pass more legal muster, but they already made clear that this is retribution for protest. This will have a chilling effect on speech. And if they legitimately believed he was a threat, they should have actually spent the time to substantiate this.”
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“As for what actually happens to Khalil, it’s not clear these new allegations will make much of a difference: “In order to deport Mr. Khalil on the basis of the new allegations, the government would have to convince an immigration judge that any failure to disclose the relevant information was willful, and that it would have made a difference in his chances of receiving legal permanent residency status””
“Does it matter that Khalil is not a U.S. citizen? In the 1945 case Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court held that “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” That case involved a longtime legal resident from Australia who was deemed deportable based on the allegation that he had been affiliated with the Communist Party.
“Once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders,” Justice Frank Murphy wrote in a concurring opinion. “Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens.””
“Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, reported on Monday that he had been added by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to an encrypted Signal group chat with the White House’s principals committee to discuss U.S. war plans in Yemen. Goldberg received the first message at 11:44 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, and around two hours later, the White House announced a new air campaign against Houthi forces. The National Security Council confirmed the group chat was real and claimed Goldberg was added by accident.”
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“The constitutional and policy merits of war are two separate questions, but they’re impossible to fully disentangle. The point of asking Congress for a declaration of war is to allow the people’s representatives to weigh the pros and cons in a deliberate, transparent way. War is the most serious decision a government can make. Citizens of a republic should not have to perform Kremlinology—or wait for an official to fat-finger his contact list—to figure out what their leaders are planning.”
“There are many excellent reasons why Boasberg should not be impeached, including the fact that Boasberg’s judgment against Trump is both persuasive and well-grounded in the law. Trump may claim that he has the unilateral authority to deport alleged criminal aliens without due process. But the administration’s arguments in support of that sweeping claim fail to pass muster on multiple counts.
Under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, “whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the president may direct the “removal” of “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized.”
Trump invoked that law in his March 15 proclamation ordering the “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of alleged members of the street gang Tren de Aragua, who are allegedly “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States…in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela.”
Except there is no “declared war” between the United States and Venezuela. And while Trump and his allies have certainly promoted the idea of a rhetorical “invasion” of the U.S. by unlawfully present aliens, that is merely a talking point. Such rhetoric does not alter the plain text of the Alien Enemies Act, which refers to military invasions by a “foreign nation or government.” As James Madison explained in his “Report on the Alien and Sedition Acts,” published on January 7, 1800, “invasion is an operation of war.” The alleged crimes of the alleged members of a nonstate street gang do not magically become “an operation of war” just because the president says so in the hopes of unlocking extra powers.
Speaking of James Madison, he said that the role of the judiciary was to stand as “an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive.” That description is probably as good of an explanation as any for why Trump, just like Roosevelt before him, is so eager to stop the courts from doing their job.”
““We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending.”
His plan, known as “impoundment,” threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president’s control over the budget. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate the federal budget, while the role of the executive branch is to dole out the money effectively. But Trump and his advisers are asserting that a president can unilaterally ignore Congress’ spending decisions and “impound” funds if he opposes them or deems them wasteful.
Trump’s designs on the budget are part of his administration’s larger plan to consolidate as much power in the executive branch as possible.”
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“The prospect of Trump seizing vast control over federal spending is not merely about reducing the size of the federal government, a long-standing conservative goal. It is also fueling new fears about his promises of vengeance.”
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“Trump and his aides claim there is a long presidential history of impoundment dating back to Thomas Jefferson.
Most historical examples involve the military and cases where Congress had explicitly given presidents permission to use discretion, said Zachary Price, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. Jefferson, for example, decided not to spend money Congress had appropriated for gun boats — a decision the law, which appropriated money for “a number not exceeding fifteen gun boats” using “a sum not exceeding fifty thousand dollars,” authorized him to make.
President Richard Nixon took impoundment to a new extreme, wielding the concept to gut billions of dollars from programs he simply opposed, such as highway improvements, water treatment, drug rehabilitation and disaster relief for farmers. He faced overwhelming pushback both from Congress and in the courts. More than a half dozen federal judges and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the appropriations bills at issue did not give Nixon the flexibility to cut individual programs.
Vought and his allies argue the limits Congress placed in 1974 are unconstitutional, saying a clause in the Constitution obligating the president to “faithfully execute” the law also implies his power to forbid its enforcement. (Trump is fond of describing Article II, where this clause lives, as giving him “the right to do whatever I want as president.”)
The Supreme Court has never directly weighed in on whether impoundment is constitutional. But it threw water on that reasoning in an 1838 case, Kendall v. U.S., about a federal debt payment.
“To contend that the obligation imposed on the President to see the laws faithfully executed, implies a power to forbid their execution, is a novel construction of the constitution, and entirely inadmissible,” the justices wrote.”
“The lawsuit filed by USAID employees and contractors argued that Musk and DOGE are wielding power the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate.”
“the White House’s social media team had no such concerns as it gleefully bragged about sending dozens of people to a Central American prison without any proof of their guilt.”
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“The White House says most of the migrants deported over the weekend were believed to be Tren de Aragua members (while others were part of MS-13, a different gang). However, immigration attorneys have pointed out that the administration has not released detailed information about the individuals or explained why they were chosen for deportation.”
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“The Trump administration’s determination to ignore due process for would-be deportees would be worrying even if it were happening in a vacuum. However, that’s not the case. From the relatively low-stakes willingness of the Department of Government Efficiency to move fast and not wait for permission, to the Trump administration’s attempt to punish law firms for working with the administration’s opponents, and its ongoing attempt to undermine birthright citizenship, the White House is showing little regard for limits on executive authority.
On several different issues, the Trump administration’s “actions reflect an unorthodox conception of American government in which the president pushes his powers to the outer limits, with diminished regard for the checks and balances provided by the legislative and judicial branches,” is how The Wall Street Journal summarized things on Monday.”
“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.”