Month: March 2025

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday for an emergency stay of a district court judge’s decision that 16,000 federal probationary employees terminated in February across six agencies and departments be immediately reinstated.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris filed an application Monday to “stay the injunction” issued by U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California that had ordered the Trump administration on March 13 to “”immediately offer reinstatement to any and all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13th and 14th 2025.” Alsup’s order earlier this month required six agencies — the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury — to reinstate probationary workers fired last month. Alsup’s order covered federal workers who were still in probationary status, or those generally in a one- or two-year trial period.  The judge said the terminations were likely unlawful because the Office of Personnel Management did not have the authority to direct the firings.

Harris argued in the filing that the labor unions and nonprofit groups that challenged the mass firings lack standing, saying they have “hijacked the employment relationship between the federal government and its workforce,” claiming the judge’s order also violates separation of powers. Harris wrote: “This Court should not allow a single district court to erase Congress’s handiwork and seize control over reviewing federal personnel decisions — much less do so by vastly exceeding the limits on the scope of its equitable authority and ordering reinstatements en masse.”

Harris urged the high court to “end the interbranch power grab … Those orders have sown chaos as the Executive Branch scrambles to meet immediate compliance deadlines by sending huge sums of government money out the door, reinstating thousands of lawfully terminated workers, undoing steps to restructure Executive Branch agencies, and more. The lower courts should not be allowed to transform themselves into all-purpose overseers of Executive Branch hiring, firing, contracting, and policymaking.”

The firings of probationary workers is being undertaken by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  More than 24,000 probationary workers were removed from their positions as part of the mass firings, involving 18 agencies.

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A federal judge on Monday kept his block on deportation flights of alleged members of Venezuela’s crime gang Tren de Araragua under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

In a 37-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., wrote that Venezuelans whom the Trump administration wants to deport under the act should get a hearing on whether they are gang members. Boasberg wrote in his ruling: “The Court need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place. That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: Before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all.”

Boasberg said use of the Alien Enemies Act “implicates a host of complicated legal issues” adding: “Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. 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.”

Judge Boasberg was appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by President George W. Bush in 2002 and elevated to the District Court in 2001 by President Barack Obama.  Pres. Trump blasted the judge, writing on Truth Social: “This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

The Justice Administration believes it has authority under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act because they are a “hybrid criminal state” invading the United States though it has been only invoked in times of declared war against other countries. DOJ lawyers have argued in court filings that “The President’s action is lawful and based upon a long history of using war authorities against organizations connected to foreign states and national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second guessing.”

An three-member appeals court heard oral arguments later on Monday on whether the lower court can hear and address the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants under an 18th-century wartime law, but did not issue a ruling.  The three-judge panel consists of Judges Karen Henderson, Patricia Millett and Justin Walker — two of whom were appointed by a Republican president. The panel declined a bid from the Trump administration to immediately remove Judge James Boasberg from the case and lift a temporary restraining order on the deportations.

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