Thursday, Mar 26th
Last update08:26:46 AM GMT
Political Glance
A divided federal appeals court panel on Friday temporarily halted U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its deportation flights to El Salvador last month.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit indicated its order is intended to provide “sufficient opportunity” for the court to consider the government’s appeal and “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.”
Harvard University is very rich. On that, most people agree.
Whether it’s rich enough to get through the next four years unscathed is less certain.
On Monday, the Ivy League school’s leaders took the bold step of publicly rejecting a sprawling list of demands from President Donald Trump’s administration. Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, rebuked the government’s ultimatum, which directed the university to overhaul its admissions, hiring and teaching practices – or risk losing billions in federal funding.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber wrote in a public statement. “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The consequences of Harvard’s defiance were swift.
A federal judge on Friday blocked U.S. President Donald Trump's administration from deporting migrants to countries with which they had no existing relationship without giving them a chance to raise claims that they would face persecution or torture if sent there.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston issued a nationwide temporary restraining order 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.
His decision came in a lawsuit filed on Sunday by a group of migrants represented by immigrant rights advocates challenging a policy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently adopted that is aimed at fast-tracking the deportations of thousands of migrants who had been previously released from detention.
President Donald Trump screamed “conflict of interest” while going after the judge who temporarily ordered he halt migrant deportations done under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.The chief executive continued his attacks on Judge James E. Boasberg in a Saturday night post on Truth Social, sharing a group photo that showed the jurist standing besides former Second Gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, and six other people.
The photo was simply from Boasberg and Emhoff’s time participating in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Mock Trial in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and did nothing to indicate the duo knew each other outside of the event, in either a professional or social capacity.
Trump began to direct his ire at Boasberg last weekend, almost immediately after the judge ordered a flight deporting a group of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador to be stopped.re
“This is a difficult day for our entire community," a university spokesperson told USA TODAY. Affected workers will receive at least 60 days notice before the cuts take effect, the spokesperson said. Many of the jobs are in other countries, since the university specializes in USAID-funded research projects, which Trump has slashed.
The historic layoffs come as other universities are cutting spending, freezing hiring and in some cases rescinding admissions acceptance for graduate students as they face budget cuts from Trump and Congress.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has banned reading “general news” websites at work, The Hill has learned.
“Social Security employees should be focused on mission-critical work and serving the American people,” a Social Security spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Hill on Thursday.
“Therefore, we implemented additional restrictions to the categories of websites prohibited from government-furnished equipment, including online shopping, general news, and sports. Employees may request an exception if they have a business need for job-specific duties,” the spokesperson continued.
NBC News and The Washington Post both reported previously that there was an SSA email discussing employee website bans including for “general news,” which was confirmed by the statement for the agency.
The top federal prosecutor in New York and two senior federal prosecutors in Washington have resigned after refusing to follow a Justice Department order to drop the corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams, multiple officials said Thursday.
The resignations amount to a stunning public rebuke of the new Justice Department leadership under the Trump administration in one of the country's most high-profile criminal cases.
The departures come after Emil Bove, the acting U.S. deputy attorney general, issued a memo Monday ordering federal prosecutors in New York to drop the case against Adams arguing, in part, that it hampered his ability to tackle “illegal immigration and violent crime."
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