The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Stock markets slid and business executives frowned when President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on auto imports, but he could take solace that the nation’s most prominent union president applauded the move. Shawn Fain, the usually combative president of the United Auto Workers, heaped praise on the tariffs, saying they would help “end the free-trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.” Fain added, “The Trump administration has made history with today’s actions.”

Fain’s words got plenty of attention—he had been an outspoken supporter of Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, and many Americans saw his praise of the auto tariffs as evidence that labor unions were enthusiastic about Trump.

But now, five weeks later, it’s abundantly clear that most unions are angry as hell about Trump 2.0. “We’ve been facing a barrage of attacks from the administration,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main union federation, in an interview. “They’re slashing jobs. They’re ripping up union contracts. They’re cutting services. Trump’s delivered on nothing that he promised. We would say his scorecard is a fail.”

Trump’s anti-union moves have come faster and been vaster than labor leaders had anticipated. He and Elon Musk have fired tens of thousands of federal workers while ignoring job protections in their union contracts. Trump dismissed the chair of the National Labor Relations Board well before her term ended, leaving the board without a quorum to function. He issued an executive order to destroy collective bargaining rights for 1 million federal employees. “That’s the biggest assault against labor in our history,” Shuler said.  [snip]

Construction workers have long been viewed as more pro-Trump than most union members, but that didn’t stop Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trade Unions, from angrily calling on Trump to bring home Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a wrongly deported immigrant who was a member of the sheet metal workers’  union. “We demand” that he “be returned to us and his family now,” McGarvey said. “Bring him home.”

Jimmy Williams, president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, explained why many construction unions are souring on Trump: As a result of Trump’s cancellation of subsidies and various projects, he said some $100 billion in planned construction has been scrapped, from electric battery factories to offshore windmills—eliminating a large number of construction jobs. “It’s been chaos. It’s been economic chaos,” Williams said. “Then there are the immigration raids, and Trump’s sheer lack of wanting to follow the rules and the law. It’s scary. We are more conservative than most unions, but what you’re seeing right now from the Trump administration is not conservative. You’re seeing fascism.”...  (our emphasis)

Eyes wide open now?  Good.  Keep them that way.  Speaking of following the rules and the law...

The bad:

President Donald Trump argued in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to rapidly carry out mass deportations may take precedence over giving immigrants the right to due process under the Constitution, as required by courts.

A central part of Trump’s agenda has been implementing the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, as he vowed during the 2024 campaign. In service of that goal, his administration has pressed the courts to allow the immediate removal of immigrants it accuses of being members of a Venezuelan gang, without giving them a chance to plead their case before a judge.

In an interview last month with “Meet the Press,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Yes, of course,” when asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process.

Trump, however, isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether he agreed with Rubio. His comments came during a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which aired Sunday.

The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”; it does not say that person must be a U.S. citizen, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights. Trump has also said that while “we always have to obey the laws,” he would like to see some “homegrown criminals” sent to El Salvador as well, a proposal that was widely panned by legal experts.

When Welker tried to point out what the Fifth Amendment said, Trump suggested that such a process would slow him down too much.  [snip]

“But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

The Supreme Court has already made it clear to the Trump administration in three different recent decisions that it has to allow basic due process rights for immigrants based on the long-standing understanding of the laws...  (our emphasis)

Of course he doesn't believe he needs to uphold the Constitution, especially the 5th Amendment!!  He's told us "I run the country and the world."  All his life he's been a firm practitioner of the adage that laws were made to be broken, so how's this Constitution that he's never read supposed to stop him, now that he "thinks" he has immunity for "official acts" handed to him by the John Roberts Republican Supreme Court?  Speaking of the courts, the Constitution, and that annoying due process, we have another ironic tidbit right here...

The ugly:

President Donald Trump says he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a hard-to-reach California island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years.

In a post on his Truth Social site Sunday evening, Trump wrote that, “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“That is why, today," he said, “I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”

Trump’s directive to rebuild and reopen the long-shuttered penitentiary was the latest salvo in his effort to overhaul how and where federal prisoners and immigration detainees are locked up. But such a move would likely be an expensive and challenging proposition. The prison was closed in 1963 due to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.

Bringing the facility up to modern-day standards would require massive investments at a time when the Bureau of Prisons has been shuttering prisons for similar infrastructure issues. [snip]

Alcatraz Island is now a major tourist site that is operate by the National Park Service and is a designated National Historic Landmark.

Trump, returning to the White House on Sunday night after a weekend in Florida, said he’d come up with the idea because of frustrations with “radicalized judges” who have insisted those being deported receive due process. Alcatraz, he said, has long been a “symbol of law and order. You know, it’s got quite a history.”...  (our emphasis)

So, he "came up with the idea" ("Brilliant, sir!") because of his frustrations with Constitutionally protected due process. As we pointed out the other day, the Malignant Fascist should be the biggest proponent of due process, since it kept him out of jail for most of his adult life, but most egregiously the last four.  (More commentary on this latest bizarre "idea" here.)

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all who celebrate (and celebrate responsibly)!

Standing For The Rule Of Law, Cont.

 

As the Malignant Fascist's "move fast and break things" reign of error crashes along, the federal judiciary, at least for now, is standing up for the rule of law:

Deportations without due process

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a second man must be returned from the El Salvador megaprison where he was hastily deported by President Donald Trump’s administration in March.

The man, referred to in court documents by the pseudonym Cristian, was among those swept up by immigration officials and flown to a brutal facility where inmates are told they will never leave. Cristian, age 20, is a native of Venezuela. 

The Trump administration has already been ordered to “facilitate” the return of another man who was on the flights, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, although he has remained in El Salvador while the administration fights to keep him there.

In Cristian’s case, Trump-appointed Judge Stephanie Gallagher nodded to Abrego Garcia and said “this Court will order Defendants to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States.”

Her order came in response to an emergency motion made in a class-action suit originally filed back in 2019 against the Department of Homeland Security, which included Cristian among its plaintiffs. The parties reached a settlement in 2024 stipulating that they could remain in the country while their individual asylum claims were processed in the courts. All had been brought into the country as children.

Gallagher wrote that facilitating Cristian’s return “includes, but is not limited to, ... a good faith request to the government of El Salvador to release Cristian to U.S. custody for transport back to the United States to await the adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS,” or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

She further ordered the administration not to remove any other individuals covered under the settlement agreement...

Funding for sanctuary cities

A federal judge in California on Thursday barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to “sanctuary” jurisdictions, saying that portions of President Donald Trump’s executive orders were unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the injunction sought by San Francisco and more than a dozen other municipalities that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.

Orrick wrote that defendants are prohibited “from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds” and the administration must provide written notice of his order to all federal departments and agencies by Monday...

DEI programs for schools

President Donald Trump’s efforts to crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs suffered a major legal blow Thursday as three separate judges – two of them appointed by the president – ruled against a Department of Education policy that threatened to withhold federal funding for schools engaging in DEI or incorporating race in certain ways in many other aspects of student life.

The policy was first laid out in a so-called Dear Colleague letter sent to schools in February. Starting this month, schools receiving federal funding would be subject to certain certification mandates requiring that they turn over information regarding their compliance with the Trump administration’s prohibitions.

US District Judge Landya McCafferty said in a scathing opinion that the administration’s policy, was “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” likely violating the First Amendment’s free speech protections. She and another judge, US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, also concluded that the policy was likely unconstitutionally vague.

She also concluded that the National Education Association, the administration’s opponent in the case, was likely to succeed in its arguments that the policy was unconstitutionally vague and that the agency ran afoul of procedural steps required by law in how it implemented the policy.

“The ban on DEI embodied in the 2025 Letter leaves teachers with a Hobson’s Choice,” McCafferty, a Barack Obama appointee who sits in New Hampshire, wrote, noting that the educators must choose between teaching curricula that invites penalty from the federal government or risking their professional credentials by aiding the Trump policy.

“The Constitution requires more,” she wrote...

These are all being set up for Supreme Court review, where there may be an emerging coalition (minus Alito and Thomas) who are seeing the MF's constant assertions of unprecedented executive power and authority not backed by the Constitution or law as a challenge to the checks and balances inherent in our system of government (such as it's become).   We're not overly sanguine that they'll uphold the rule of law as the lower courts, in large part, are doing, but we likely won't have to wait long to find out.

Some In Justice System Standing For Rule Of Law

 

Some developments on the legal front this morning:

Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia without due process

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court order that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was forcibly and wrongly deported to El Salvador, where he is in prison.

But the Supreme Court in its decision told a Maryland federal district court judge to clarify his order last week that the administration “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

The decision also directed the Trump administration to prepare “to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps” related to his possible return.

The Trump administration had opposed the order to return the El Salvador native even after acknowledging that he “was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” the Supreme Court noted in its ruling.

The Supreme Court decision is a major rebuke to the administration, which, since the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, has made the forcible deportation of purported gang members a top priority...

Trump defamation suit

U.S. President Donald Trump has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of making defamatory statements about five Black and Hispanic men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York's Central Park.

Philadelphia-based U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled on Thursday that the men had presented enough evidence for now to pursue their lawsuit accusing Trump of defaming them in comments he made during the 2024 presidential campaign. The judge narrowed the lawsuit, however, by dismissing a claim by the plaintiffs of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

 

The lawsuit was filed in federal court last October by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called the Central Park Five. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.

 

Shanin Specter, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, in a statement on Thursday welcomed the judge's ruling and said he and his clients "look forward to discovery, trial and the ultimate vindication of these five fine men."...

Birthright citizenship

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump has scolded his administration and the Justice Department for dragging its feet in an ongoing birthright citizenship case, denying a request Wednesday for more time after firmly telling the DOJ that motions for extensions were “discouraged.”

 

“Defendants appear to have had access to the relevant pleadings — both in this case and in the other identified cases — for at least two months,” a minute order read from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly on Wednesday. “And despite Defendants’ conclusory assertion of ‘good cause shown,’ they do not explain why they were unable to file any response to the Complaint — or the contemplated motion to stay — before the expiration of the current deadline,” the minute order said.

Kelly, appointed by Trump in 2017, noted the court’s standing order issued on Jan. 31, the day after the birthright citizenship case was first filed, outlining the rules and details of the ongoing proceedings. The order included specific guidelines about what would be required if the government wanted an extension.

Kelly said Wednesday that the DOJ followed none of them with its Monday motion for an extension...

Humanitarian parole

A federal judge on Thursday will halt the Trump administration from ending a program that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily live in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani announced that she plans to issue a stay on the program, which was set to end later this month. The push to help more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans is part of a broader legal effort to protect nationals from Ukraine, Afghanistan and other countries who are here legally.

During a hearing on the case, Talwani repeatedly questioned the government’s assertion for ending the program — namely that it has the power to do and that it was no longer serving its purpose. She argued that immigrants in the program who are here legally now face an option of “fleeing the country” or staying and “risk losing everything.”

“The nub of the problem here is that the secretary, in cutting short the parole period afforded to these individuals, has to have a reasoned decision,” Talwani said, adding that the explanation for ending the program was “based on an incorrect reading of the law.”

“There was a deal and now that deal has been undercut,” she added later in the hearing.

Last month, the administration revoked legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in 30 days. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they will lose their legal status on April 24.

They arrived with financial sponsors and were given two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. During that time, the beneficiaries needed to find other legal pathways if they wanted to stay in the U.S. Parole has been a temporary status.

President Donald Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S., implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally... 

It's been said, with the legislative branch of the federal government neutered by subservient Republican MAGAt control and pusillanimous Democrats in key positions, the courts are the only branch offering resistance (for now) to the ambitions of our would- be fascist dictator.  We anticipate the day coming soon when the unbound and lawless Malignant Fascist echoes the (likely apocryphal) quote by President Andrew Jackson on a case ruled on in 1832 by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall:  "John Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it."  For someone who believes he's above the law, that's the clear course ahead.