Judge blocks Trump’s move to dismantle consumer protection watchdog – US politics live
Judge blocks Trump from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
A US judge has just issued a ruling blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a vital watchdog agency, the AP reports.
The US district judge Amy Berman Jackson’s ruling puts in place a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency’s existence while she considers the arguments of a lawsuit seeking to prevent the president’s decimation of the bureau. The judge said the court “can and must act” to save the CFPB from being shuttered, according to the AP.
The CFPB had been targeted for mass terminations, and employees were ordered to stop working last month after Donald Trump fired the bureau’s director. The current chief operating officer has said the agency was in “wind-down mode”. The president’s attacks on the bureau, which included canceling $100m in contracts and ordering immediate suspension of CFPB operations, have caused chaos, workers have testified.
The consumer watchdog is a popular US agency known for recovering more than $21bn for defrauded Americans. It was created after the 2008 financial crisis.
The judge on Friday ordered the CFPB to maintain a hotline for consumer complaints and provide office space for its employees or allow them to work remotely, according to Reuters.
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US barred from deporting Tufts student without court order
A Tufts University student who was detained by immigration authorities this week, in an arrest that caused widespread outrage, cannot be deported to Turkey without a court order, a US judge ordered on Friday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was detained by masked plainclothes officers as she walked in the Boston area on Tuesday, an incident that was captured on surveillance footage that has since gone viral. Ozturk is pursuing her doctorate in philosophy and is a Fulbright scholar.
The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk’s visa was terminated, accusing her of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, but providing no evidence to substantiate that claim. Ozturk and three other students co-wrote an opinion piece in the student newspaper last year urging the university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel”.
Ozturk was taken to a detention center in Louisiana. The US district judge Denise Casper said on Friday the government had until Tuesday evening to respond to the latest complaint by Ozturk’s legal team, the AP reported.
“To allow the court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” Casper said.
The Trump administration has increasingly sought to deport students and academics who had varying degrees of involvement in pro-Palestinian campus activism last year, including permanent residents with green cards.
Judge blocks Trump effort to shutter Voice of America
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the Voice of America, the US’s oldest and largest international broadcaster, which is government-funded.
The judge James Paul Oetken called the president’s push to defund Voice of America (VoA) a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision-making”, according to the AP. The judge also criticized the Trump administration for “taking a sledgehammer to an agency that has been statutorily authorized and funded by Congress”.
Oetken’s temporary restraining order issued on Friday prevents the US Agency for Global Media, the independent federal agency that oversees VoA, from terminating more than 1,200 employees, including journalists and engineers. The ruling also prohibits “any further attempt to terminate, reduce-in-force, place on leave, or furlough” employees or contractors. The agency is further barred from closing offices or requiring employees stationed overseas to return to the US, the AP reported.
The president’s attacks on the US Agency for Global Media have caused chaos for employees, including international workers who said the cuts put them at risk of deportation to home countries, including to nations where they could face violence from authoritarian governments.
The US Agency for Global Media provides grants to a range of outlets, including Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe, and some of the journalists are particularly vulnerable. “If their own government knew they worked for RFA [Radio Free Asia] and they went back to their own country, their lives would be at risk,” Jaewoo Park, a journalist for RFA, recently told the Guardian.
Oetken’s ruling prohibits the termination of grant funding for Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Afghanistan and other outlets.
Doge can continue cuts at US Agency for International Development, appeals court rules
A US appeals court has lifted an order blocking Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from making additional cuts at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by former USAID employees against Musk, alleging Doge’s actions were unconstitutional given that Musk was not in a Senate-approved position or elected to office, the AP reports. A judge in a lower court ruled against Musk, finding Doge’s efforts to dismantle USAID were likely unconstitutional, but the fourth US circuit court of appeals disagreed, finding that while Doge played a role, the cuts were approved by government officials.
Musk had posted on social media that he “fed USAID into the wood chipper”, but the appeals court said that comment wasn’t legal proof that he was making the orders.
“While defendants’ role and actions related to USAID are not conventional, unconventional does not necessarily equal unconstitutional,” wrote Marvin Quattlebaum, a circuit judge appointed by Trump.
The lower court ruling by the US district judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland had ordered the Trump administration to restore computer access to USAID employees, but did not reverse firings.
An Iranian doctoral student who was detained by US immigration authorities this week amid the Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on campuses had no involvement in protests, his lawyer said.
Alireza Doroudi, a 32-year-old University of Alabama student, was arrested at his apartment in the middle of the night earlier this week, according to his attorneys. His visa had been revoked in 2023, but he was authorized to stay in the US while he remained a student, David Rozas, his lawyer, told the AP. Rozas said:
He has not been arrested for any crime, nor has he participated in any anti-government protests. He is legally present in the US, pursuing his American dream by working towards his doctorate in mechanical engineering.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed Doroudi “posed significant national security concerns”, according to the AP, but declined to elaborate. Doroudi’s lawyer said he was unaware of any specific security allegations against his client.
A string of students on visas and permanent residents with green cards have been arrested and threatened with deportation in recent days, many of them with some ties to pro-Palestinian activism. Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University in Boston, who was detained by plainclothes officers in masks, had co-written an op-ed about the university’s response to the war in Gaza.
Here’s our earlier coverage of Doroudi’s case and the reaction at the University of Alabama:
Wisconsin attorney general seeks to block Elon Musk’s $1m check giveaways
The Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin has asked a court to block Elon Musk from giving $1m checks to voters as he seeks to influence a critical state supreme court race, the AP reports.
Musk, who has been railing against judges blocking Trump administration policies, initially said in a social media post that he planned to “personally hand over” $2m to a pair of voters who had cast ballots in the race. He later claimed the money would go to people who will be “spokesmen” for an online petition targeting “activist” judges.
On Friday, Musk’s political action committee identified the recipient of the first $1m giveaway – a man who had donated to the conservative candidate in the court race and who has posted in support of Trump, the AP said.
The race will determine the ideological tilt of the court, which is expected to consider abortion rights, union cases, congressional redistricting and voting rules.
Josh Kaul, the state’s attorney general, urged a court to prevent Musk from making future payments to Wisconsin voters and to cease promoting a giveaway event this week. He argued the payments violated state law. Musk has deleted his post promising a giveaway, and a spokesperson for his Pac declined to comment to AP.
Judge blocks Trump from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
A US judge has just issued a ruling blocking the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a vital watchdog agency, the AP reports.
The US district judge Amy Berman Jackson’s ruling puts in place a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency’s existence while she considers the arguments of a lawsuit seeking to prevent the president’s decimation of the bureau. The judge said the court “can and must act” to save the CFPB from being shuttered, according to the AP.
The CFPB had been targeted for mass terminations, and employees were ordered to stop working last month after Donald Trump fired the bureau’s director. The current chief operating officer has said the agency was in “wind-down mode”. The president’s attacks on the bureau, which included canceling $100m in contracts and ordering immediate suspension of CFPB operations, have caused chaos, workers have testified.
The consumer watchdog is a popular US agency known for recovering more than $21bn for defrauded Americans. It was created after the 2008 financial crisis.
The judge on Friday ordered the CFPB to maintain a hotline for consumer complaints and provide office space for its employees or allow them to work remotely, according to Reuters.
US judge blocks Trump’s fast-tracked deportations
A US judge has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from swiftly deporting people to countries with which they have no relationship, Reuters reports.
The ruling from the US district judge Brian Murphy in Boston is a nationwide temporary restraining order, stipulating that immigrants threatened with deportation to a third country must have a chance to raise claims that they would face persecution or torture if they were deported. The order is designed to “protect migrants subject to final orders of removal from being swiftly deported to countries other than those that had already been identified during immigration proceedings”, Reuters said.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights advocates challenging an 18 February directive that instructed officers to review cases of individuals previously released from detention, and to consider re-arresting and deporting them to third countries. The judge told a US justice department attorney at a hearing:
If your position today is that we don’t have to give them any notice, and we can send them to any country other than the country to which the immigration court has said no, that’s a very surprising thing to hear the government say.
Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the immigrants at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, praised the ruling, saying: “We’re relieved the judge saw the urgency of this situation both for our named plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals.”
The order comes as the Trump administration continues to face widespread scrutiny over its rushed deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador.
Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyers call for his release and criticize ‘Kafkaesque’ treatment
Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist facing deportation due to his involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, urged a US judge on Friday to free their client, a green-card holder.
Khalil was detained earlier this month in New York and transferred to immigration detention in Louisiana, even though he is a permanent resident and has not been accused of a crime.
According to the AP, Baher Azmy, one of Khalil’s attorneys, argued in court that the case should be moved back to New York, saying: “They keep passing around the body in an almost Kafkaesque way.” The attorney argued that the US was chilling Khalil’s free speech: “The longer we wait, the more chill there is … Everyone knows about this case and is wondering if they’re going to get picked off the street for opposing US foreign policy.”
The attorneys and the US justice department were appearing in court in New Jersey to debate which court should have jurisdiction over the case as Khalil fights to be released. The US district judge Michael Farbiarz said he would issue a written decision.
Khalil recently spoke out from detention, saying in a statement shared with the Guardian: “I am a political prisoner.” More background on Khalil here:
Trump administration investigating Maine over trans rights policies
The US Department of Education said Friday it had launched an investigation into Maine over school districts’ trans rights policies.
The Trump administration has accused some Maine school districts of “prohibiting parents from accessing records relating to their child’s ‘gender transition’”, claiming this violates federal laws protecting parents’ rights.
Some school districts in Maine and across the country have adopted policies meant to protect the privacy of LGBTQ+ students who may be out at school, but not at home where it could be unsafe or they may be unsupported by parents. Some policies are meant to stop the “forced outing” of students to their families.
The US education department said in a statement it had received reports alleging that some Maine districts have policies that allow schools to “create ‘gender plans’ supporting a student’s ‘transgender identity’”, but then withhold those records from parents, according to the AP. Maine school officials declined to comment to the AP.
The investigation, along with a similar one announced targeting California schools, is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive attack on trans youth rights.
During his campaign last year, Trump repeatedly spread misinformation and falsehoods suggesting students were getting gender-affirming medical care and surgeries in school without parents’ involvement. The LGBTQ+ rights policies in question, however, generally involve respecting trans students’ pronouns and names and allowing them to use facilities that match their gender.
US consular offices ordered to vet student visas for ‘terrorist activity’
The US state department has ordered consular officers to conduct expanded screening processes for student visa applicants, including through comprehensive social media investigations, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports.
A 25 March cable describes a new standard for visa denials based on a broad definition of what constitutes support for “terrorist activity”. The directive states that “evidence that an applicant advocates for terrorist activity, or otherwise demonstrates a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization” can be grounds for visa rejection.
It specifically targets new and renewing F, M and J student visa applications, providing explicit instructions for consular officers to conduct mandatory social media reviews digging into applicants’ lives online. Officers are directed to examine the social media of all students applying for a visa for evidence of activities the administration defines as a threat to national security or terrorism.
The move comes as the Trump administration has been aggressively targeting students on college campuses across the country deemed to have ties to pro-Palestinian activism. This week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Fulbright scholar at Tufts University in Boston, was detained by agents, who were wearing plainclothes and masks, an arrest caught on video that sparked widespread outrage. She had a student visa and had co-written an op-ed last year supporting calls for the university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.
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Defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s younger brother is serving in a key position inside the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser, Hegseth’s office confirmed.
The high-profile job has meant meetings with a UFC fighting champion, a trip to Guantánamo Bay and, right now, traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as Hegseth makes his first trip as defense secretary to the Indo-Pacific.
Phil Hegseth’s official title is senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the defense department, spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said in a statement Thursday.
“Phil Hegseth, one of a number of talented DHS liaisons to DOD, is conducting touch points with US Coast Guard officials on the Secretary’s Indo-Pacific trip,” which includes stops in Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Japan, Wilson said in response to a query by the Associated Press.
It’s common for the defense department and other federal agencies to have liaisons. Each military branch sends liaisons to Capitol Hill. The Pentagon, state department and others all use interagency liaisons to more closely coordinate and keep tabs on policy.
But it is not common for those senior-level positions to be filled by family members of the cabinet heads, said Michael Fallings, a managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, which specializes in federal employment law.
It’s not the first time Phil Hegseth has worked alongside his older brother. When Pete Hegseth was CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a non-profit that fell into financial difficulty during his time there, he paid his brother $108,000 to do media relations for the organization, according to federal tax records.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Phil Hegseth’s job title and said this “interagency mission is part of Mr Hegseth’s preview”, presumably meaning “purview”.
DHS said Phil Hegseth, while on the Indo-Pacific trip, has been meeting with representatives from Homeland Security Investigations, the law enforcement arm of the department, “and other DHS components and interagency partners”.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request to interview Phil Hegseth. Neither the Pentagon nor the Department of Homeland Security has responded to queries about his qualifications for the job.
