USA

Supreme Court Empowers Trump to Restart Deportation of Migrants

Published

5 months ago

June 24, 2025

Eric

The Trump administration has been allowed to restart swift removals of migrants to countries other than their homelands very soon, following a divided Supreme Court order requiring that they get a chance to challenge the deportations.

All three liberal justices dissented from the order, and the high court majority did not detail its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket.

The ruling came after immigration officials put eight people on a plane to South Sudan in May, a decision which U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston found violated his court order giving people a chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent away from their home countries.

The migrants from countries including Myanmar, Vietnam and Cuba had been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. and immigration officials have said that they were unable to return them quickly to their home countries.

After Murphy stepped in, authorities landed the plane at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, where the migrants were housed in a converted shipping container and the officers guarding them faced rough conditions even as immigration attorneys waited for word from their clients.

The case comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.

Since some countries do not accept U.S. deportations, the administration has reached agreements with other countries, including Panama and Costa Rica, to house them. South Sudan, meanwhile, has endured repeated waves of violence since gaining independence in 2011.

Murphy’s order doesn’t prohibit deportations to third countries. But it says migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in serious danger of torture if sent to another country.

In a scathing 19-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court’s action exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”

“The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The justices have confronted a similar issue in Trump’s effort to send Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador with little chance to challenge the deportations in court.

In that case, the court said migrants must get a “reasonable time” to file a court challenge before being removed, and the majority blocked the administration from resuming the deportations while lower courts worked out exactly how long they should get.

The conservative-majority court has sided with Trump in other immigration cases, however, clearing the way for his administration to end temporary legal protections affecting a total of nearly a million immigrants.

The third-country deportation case has been one of several legal flashpoints as the administration rails against judges whose rulings have slowed the president’s policies.

Another order from Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, resulted in the Trump administration returning a gay Guatemalan man who had been wrongly deported to Mexico, where he says he had been raped and extorted. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of Trump’s second term.

USA

Trump Signs Spending Bill to End Longest Government Shutdown

Published

4 days ago

November 13, 2025

Eric

US President Donald Trump has signed a federal spending bill, officially ending the longest government shutdown in American history.

The legislation, passed by the House of Representatives in a 222–209 vote, followed narrow approval in the Senate just two days earlier. The bill restores funding to federal agencies after 43 days of closure, bringing relief to millions of government employees and citizens affected by halted services.

Speaking after signing the measure on Wednesday night, Trump described the deal as a political victory, asserting that Democrats unnecessarily prolonged the shutdown.

“They didn’t want to do it the easy way. They had to do it the hard way, and they look very bad,” he said.

The temporary funding bill maintains government operations only through 30 January, creating a new deadline for lawmakers to negotiate a long-term budget solution.

As part of the agreement, Senate leaders committed to an early December vote on Obamacare subsidies, a key priority for Democrats during the shutdown standoff.

In addition to reopening federal offices, the bill provides full-year funding for the Department of Agriculture, military construction projects, and several legislative branch offices.

It also ensures retroactive pay for federal workers affected by the shutdown and allocates funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, which helps about one in eight Americans access food.

The shutdown, which began in October, forced the suspension of many government services, leaving an estimated 1.4 million federal employees either furloughed or working without pay. It also disrupted food assistance programmes and caused widespread delays in domestic air travel.

With federal operations now resumed, attention in Washington has turned to whether Congress and the White House can reach a longer-term funding agreement before the new deadline at the end of January.

USA

Kamala Harris Mulls Second Attempt at US Presidency

Published

3 weeks ago

October 26, 2025

Eric

Former US Vice President Kamala Harris said in a British television interview previewed Saturday that she may “possibly” run again to be president.

Harris, who replaced Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate but lost to Donald Trump, told the BBC that she had not yet decided whether to make another White House bid.

But the 61-year-old insisted she was “not done” in American politics and that her young grandnieces would see a female president in the Oval Office “in their lifetime, for sure”.

“I have lived my entire career a life of service, and it’s in my bones, and there are many ways to serve,” Harris told the British broadcaster in an interview set to air in full on Sunday.

“I’ve not decided yet what I will do in the future, beyond what I am doing right now.”

The comments are the strongest hint yet that Harris could attempt to be the Democratic Party nominee for the 2028 election.

The interview follows the release of her memoir last month in which she argued it had been “recklessness” to let Biden run for a second term as president.

She also accused his White House team of failing to support her while she was his deputy, and at times of actively hindering her.

USA

Trump Pardons Binance Founder Zhao after Conviction for Money Laundering

Published

3 weeks ago

October 24, 2025

Eric

US President, Donald Trump, has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire who built the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and later served prison time for compliance failures linked to money laundering and illicit activity.

The decision ends a months-long push by Zhao, known widely in the crypto world as “CZ”, to clear his record. The Binance founder has long been seen as one of the most influential figures in the digital asset space and a key supporter of the Trump family’s crypto ventures.

“Deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice,” Zhao wrote on social media on Thursday.

The case against Zhao

Zhao served a four-month sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, becoming the first person ever jailed under the law, which requires financial institutions to verify customers’ identities and report suspicious transactions.

Prosecutors said Zhao’s violations were unprecedented, accusing Binance of facilitating more than 1.5 million illegal crypto trades worth nearly $900 million. Those transactions allegedly included dealings with sanctioned groups such as Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, al-Qaida, and Iran.

Judge Richard Jones, who oversaw the case, said Zhao’s refusal to comply with US banking rules allowed Binance’s explosive growth. Prosecutors cited Zhao telling employees, Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, when referring to the company’s approach to regulation.

“I failed here,” Zhao told the court during sentencing. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

Zhao’s rise is one of tech’s most striking rags-to-riches stories.

Born in rural China, he immigrated to Canada with his family after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. As a teen, he worked at McDonald’s before turning to tech in college.

He launched Binance in 2017, and within a few years, it had become a global powerhouse in digital finance.

White House defends pardon

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the pardon, saying the counsel’s office had thoroughly reviewed the request.

She accused the previous Biden administration of pursuing “an egregious oversentencing” and adopting a very hostile stance toward the crypto industry.

“President Trump wants to correct this overreach,” Leavitt said, drawing a clear contrast between the two administrations’ approaches to digital finance.

Trump’s move continues his pattern of using presidential clemency to aid political allies, public figures, and others convicted of controversial crimes.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has dropped several enforcement actions against crypto firms initiated under Biden and even dissolved a Justice Department unit focused on crypto-related crimes.

Trump and his sons have also embraced crypto. Their venture, World Liberty Financial, launched a dollar-backed stablecoin that gained early traction after an Abu Dhabi investment fund used $2 billion worth of the token to buy a stake in Binance.

Following news of Zhao’s pardon, the value of another Trump-linked token, World Liberty Finance’s secondary coin, surged sharply, outperforming every major cryptocurrency on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.