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Judge contends Nazis got more due process than Trump deportees did
In this handout photo provided by the Salvadoran government, members of the Salvadorian army stand guard at CECOT on March 16, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. The Trump administration deported alleged members of Tren de Aragua gang and others to El Salvador.
Handout/Salvadoran government via Getty Images
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Handout/Salvadoran government via Getty Images
The Trump administration received pointed questions from a judge over how it’s implementing a rarely-used wartime law to deport Venezuelans suspected of being Tren de Aragua gang members.
A president last invoked the Alien Enemies Act after the attack on Pearl Harbor, designating Japanese, German and Italian nationals as “alien enemies” during World War II.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than what has happened here,” D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Millett said during a hearing at the court on Monday. “And they had hearing boards before they were removed.”
“People weren’t given notice, they weren’t told where they were going,” she said about the removal of Venezuelans and others to El Salvador earlier this month.
Lawyers with the Justice Department are asking the appeals court in Washington to overturn a temporary restraining order blocking deportations under the act put in place by district court Judge James Boasberg. A ruling to lift the temporary pause on deportations, or keep it in place, is likely to prompt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The fight over the rarely used wartime power has become central to Trump’s immigration crackdown agenda and his efforts to stretch the power of the executive branch.
The panel of three judges did not deliver a decision from the bench but could do so in the coming days.
Judge Millett appeared sympathetic to the arguments of immigrants rights groups who sought to block immediate deportations, but it is unclear which way Judge Karen Henderson, a George W. Bush appointee, was leaning.
According to court documents, if the judge lifts the pause, some 258 people would likely be placed in removal proceedings under the Alien Enemies Act for being alleged members of Tren de Aragua.
DOJ says pause was “enormous intrusion” on president’s power
Justice Department lawyers argued that Boasberg’s order to pause removals under the act is an “unprecedented and enormous intrusion” on the president’s power and that this type of “second-guessing” could potentially hurt the United States’ current and future deals with other countries. The U.S. has negotiated with El Salvador and other countries to take in deportees.
Drew Ensign, the government attorney leading the case, received pointed questions about how it could work for people detained or even removed under the Alien Enemies Act to bring up individual petitions to contest allegations they are members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
“The problem here is that they are challenging implementation of the proclamation in a way that never gave anyone a chance to say, ‘I’m not covered,” Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said. She said prior cases clearly show the government needs to give people that due process.
Due process “can’t be an unlawful intrusion of the president’s powers. The president has to comply with the constitution and laws like everybody else,” she said.
Judge Justin Walker, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, was sympathetic to the government’s argument that those who are currently detained under the Alien Enemies Act should contest their arrests through a habeas petition, which is how someone can legally argue they are being unlawfully detained.
Walker suggested that the plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, should have filed in Texas as opposed to in D.C. The five Venezuelan plaintiffs that first filed the lawsuit are held in Texas, even though their lawyers argued that they now are also representing hundreds of people potentially subject to the act nationwide.
Still, Ensign said that should the judges side with the government and lift the pause on deportations, the government would not have a limitation and not be required to provide notice for those deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
Lower DC court keeps pause on deportations in place
Earlier in the day, Boasberg issued an order to keep in place his 14-day pause on the administration’s ability to deport anyone under the act.
Boasberg denied the government’s attempt to vacate his temporary restraining order, noting that immigrant rights groups were likely to win the argument in court that the men deported to El Salvador should have gotten individualized hearings to determine whether the act applied to them.
“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg wrote in his order. “Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well.”
Boasberg said the pause on the flights does not prevent the government from making arrests, or even deporting those it suspects of being members of Tren de Aragua.
He gave the immigrant rights groups until Wednesday to file a preliminary injunction, which could pave the way for an even longer court-ordered pause on the use of the wartime powers.
Boasberg also direct Trump’s cabinet secretaries to decide by Tuesday whether they were going to invoke a privilege that would allow them to not disclose information about the deportation flights.
Boasberg and the DOJ went back and forth over whether the administration ignored the judge’s order to not use the act to send 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador on March 15.
Candidates in California’s volatile race for governor will meet Wednesday night for the first televised debate since Eric Swalwell dropped out, each looking to seize momentum in the tight contest.
The debate, being held at the television studio of KRON4 in San Francisco, will include four Democrats and two Republicans who are tightly bunched in recent polls, with many voters still undecided less than six weeks before the June 2 primary.
Mr. Swalwell, a Democrat, had just begun to emerge as a Democratic front-runner when his campaign swiftly collapsed after he was accused of sexual assault in news reports on April 10.
Candidates have taken relatively few risks so far in debates around the state, but every candidate is now eyeing a chance to jump to the front of the pack.
“Even though we have seen some movement in the last couple of weeks, it continues to be a fairly crowded, fractured field,” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. “So candidates need to be able to grab attention in a debate like this.”
The debate comes as Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and former California attorney general, has enjoyed a surge of support in polls since Mr. Swalwell dropped out of the race.
Mr. Becerra and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, did not originally meet the threshold to participate in Wednesday’s debate when Mr. Swalwell was running. But they both qualified after receiving enough support in a follow-up poll that debate organizers commissioned once Mr. Swalwell had dropped out.
The other Democrats scheduled to participate are Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, and Katie Porter, a former congresswoman, each of whom have been polling near the top of the Democratic field for several weeks. The Republicans in the debate are Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host who has been endorsed by President Trump, and Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County.
All candidates run on the same ballot in California’s nonpartisan primary, with the two who receive the most votes advancing to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. The large number of Democratic candidates has created fear among state party leaders that their voters could splinter, potentially allowing two Republicans to sweep the primary in this heavily Democratic state.
The odds of that happening have decreased since Mr. Swalwell dropped out and another Democrat, Betty Yee, withdrew on Monday. But Rusty Hicks, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, still believes there are too many Democrats in the race and has urged those lagging in polls to end their campaigns. (The actual ballot will include 61 candidates for governor, most of whom are completely unknown to voters.)
The messy race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run for re-election because of term limits, has played out as the most unpredictable contest California has seen in a generation. It has attracted a sprawling field but no one with the star power of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the political might of Mr. Newsom or former Gov. Jerry Brown.
Much of California’s Democratic establishment is still figuring out whom to back in the turbulent race.
Mr. Newsom has not endorsed anyone, saying he trusts voters to elect someone “who reflects the values and direction Californians believe in.” Representative Nancy Pelosi, the influential former House speaker from San Francisco, and Senator Alex Padilla also have not announced their favorites. Senator Adam Schiff endorsed Mr. Swalwell earlier this year but quickly withdrew his support after the accusations against him were published.
On Tuesday, Ms. Yee endorsed Mr. Steyer, praising his work to fight climate change and engage young voters. Mr. Steyer has swamped his competitors with a raft of advertising by pouring $134 million from his personal fortune into his campaign.
Also on Tuesday, Mr. Becerra, whose campaign had appeared to be flailing until Mr. Swalwell dropped out, received the endorsement of Robert Rivas, the Democratic speaker of the California State Assembly. Mr. Rivas said he had encouraged Mr. Becerra to run for governor because he was impressed by his work as California’s attorney general during President Trump’s first term.
“He understands both the policy and the politics,” Mr. Rivas said in an interview. “And he has a track record, in my opinion, of delivering results under pressure.”
The 90-minute debate on Wednesday begins at 7 p.m. PT and will be broadcast and streamed by KRON and other California stations.
Virginians approved a new congressional map on Tuesday that would aggressively gerrymander the state in the Democrats’ favor, giving the party as many as four more U.S. House seats.
The new map draws eight safely Democratic districts and two competitive districts that lean Democratic, according to a New York Times analysis of 2024 presidential results. It leaves just one safe Republican seat, compared with the five seats the G.O.P. holds on the current map.
The proposed map was drawn by Democratic state legislators and approved by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat. It eliminates three Republican-held seats in part by slicing the densely populated suburbs in Arlington and Fairfax Counties and reallocating their overwhelmingly Democratic voters into five congressional districts, some stretching more than a hundred miles into Republican areas.
Perhaps the most extreme new district is the Seventh, which begins at the Potomac River and stretches to the west and south in a manner that resembles a pair of lobster claws. Several well-known Virginia Democrats have already announced their candidacies and begun campaigning in the district.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel listens during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to pay informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with payments of at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America and other extremist groups.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.
The civil rights group faces charges including wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought by the Justice Department in Alabama, where the organization is based.
The indictment came shortly after SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its program to pay informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.
SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”
Blanche said the money was passed from the center through two different bank accounts before being loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the members of the extremist groups, which also included the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club. The group never disclosed to donors details of the informant program, he said.
“They’re required to under the laws associated with a nonprofit to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing,” he said.
The indictment includes details on at least nine unnamed informants were paid by the SPLC through a secret program that prosecutors say began in the 1980s. Within the SPLC, they were known as field sources or “the Fs,” according to the indictment. One informant was paid more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the indictment said. Another was the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America.
The SPLC said the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.
“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”
The center has been targeted by Republicans
The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.
The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.
The SPLC has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the center, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the center had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.
House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration “to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”
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