 "‘Weak and ineffective’: Trump lashes out at judges after Court blocks migrant deportation plan")
The rift over President Donald Trump’s push to wield unprecedented authority in deporting migrants escalated on Sunday as he once again lashed out at the judiciary. While a senior Democrat cautioned that the country was edging “closer and closer” to a constitutional crisis.
Tensions flared after the US Supreme Court stepped in during the early hours of Saturday, issuing a temporary block on the Trump administration’s plan to deport a group of Venezuelan migrants. The migrants had been accused of gang ties under a seldom-invoked wartime statute, though the government swiftly urged the court to lift the suspension.
The Supreme Court’s decision came in response to an emergency appeal from American Civil Liberties Union lawyers, who argued that dozens of Venezuelan migrants were at risk of immediate deportation without the judicial oversight the court had previously mandated.
Trump lashed out Sunday on his Truth Social platform, not specifically naming the high court but slamming the “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Samuel Alito, one of two conservative high-court justices to vote against the halt, called the emergency ruling by the court’s majority “legally questionable.”
“Literally in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief… without hearing from the opposing party,” Alito wrote in his dissent.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe court’s order at least temporarily halted what rights groups warned were imminent deportations of Venezuelan migrants being held in Texas, who have been accused of being gang members.
More broadly, the decision temporarily prevents the government from continuing to expel migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – last used to round up Japanese-American citizens during World War II.
The Trump administration has been butting heads with federal judges, rights groups and Democrats who say he has trampled or ignored constitutionally enshrined rights in rushing to deport migrants, sometimes without the right to a hearing.
“We’re getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told CNN.
“Donald Trump is trying to pull us down into the sewer of a crisis.”
The Republican president has insisted that he is protecting American citizens against a wave of undocumented migration – including, he says, murderers, terrorists and rapists – while carrying out the will of the voters who returned him to the White House.
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