Please click here to opt in to receive the Executive Functions Morning Roundup via email.
On Saturday, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act to arrest and deport individuals the administration identified as belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang without going through normal immigration processing procedures. Early in the day on Saturday, Judge James Boasberg (D.D.C.) enjoined the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelan men. Later that day, Judge Boasberg issued another temporary restraining order (TRO) barring the government from deporting individuals subject to the proclamation. The second TRO included a directive to the government to turn planes around if necessary to comply with the order. Three planes apparently landed in El Salvador after Judge Boasberg issued the second order. The government says one of those planes was not carrying any detainees subject to President Trump’s proclamation. See the background that preceded the proclamation in Saturdays’s Roundup. (District court docket.) (Appeals court docket.) (NYT.) (Axios.) (Ryan Goodman’s timeline of the saga, Just Security.) (Commentary from Samuel Bray, Divided Argument, Steve Vladeck, One First, and Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy.)
A professor at Brown University’s medical school, Rasha Alawieh, was deported from the United States on Friday evening after a federal judge, Leo Sorokin (D. Mass.), had issued an order earlier in the evening requiring the government to provide 48-hours notice before removing her from the country. Customs and Border Protection officials said they hadn’t received formal notice through official channels of the order before sending Alawieh out of the United States on a plane. Judge Sorokin on Sunday directed the government to respond by this morning to “serious allegations” that it intentionally disobeyed a court order. The Justice Department this morning said that the government identified “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures that had been deleted from Alawieh’s phone, and that Alawieh had told them that she attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah. (Docket.) (Politico.) (Axios.)
Judge William Alsup (N.D. Cal.) on Saturday denied the government’s motion for a stay of a preliminary injunction that required the Trump administration to offer to reinstate probationary employees who had been fired from six federal agencies. See news of the preliminary injunction in a prior Roundup. (Judge Alsup’s order.)
Following President Trump’s executive order on Friday directing the elimination of components and functions of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, more than 1,000 journalists and employees from the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were reportedly placed on administrative leave. (Politico.) (Executive order.)
Bob Bauer analyzed President Trump’s actions targeting large law firms and what they reveal about the nature of Trump’s “personalist presidency.” (Executive Functions.) David Post weighed in on the order targeting Paul Weiss, labeling the effort “truly … absurd and Orwellian.” (The Volokh Conspiracy.)
Jack Goldsmith discussed the central legal questions underlying the Trump administration’s activities and to what extent current executive branch action departs from previous presidencies. (American Compass.)
Steve Vladeck contended that the birthright citizenship case may not be a good forum for the Supreme Court to review the merits of universal injunctions. Vladeck contended, “[T]he question isn’t whether this [case] is a good vehicle in the abstract; it’s the message it would send to curtail the scope of relief here when the Court has refused to do so in … other, recent, less-divisive contexts.” (One First.)
Jed Rubenfeld argued that the Trump administration’s birthright citizenship arguments lack historical basis, and that they will likely fail in court. (WSJ.)
Josh Blackman considered hypotheticals that may present some complexities for the Supreme Court in its consideration of the administration’s birthright citizenship arguments. (The Volokh Conspiracy.)
Ilya Somin and David Bier criticized the Trump administration’s expansive claims regarding the president’s immigration-related authorities and birthright citizenship. (U.S. News and World Report.)