judges

BALTIMORE — The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland over an order that blocks the immediate removal of any detained immigrant who requests a court hearing.

The unusual suit filed Tuesday in Baltimore against the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland and the court’s other judges underscores the administration’s focus on immigration enforcement and ratchets up its fight with the judiciary.

At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland federal district court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition is filed.

In its suit, the Trump administration says such an automatic pause on removals violates a Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,” the suit says. “And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.”

The suit names the U.S. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as plaintiffs.

The Maryland district court had no comment, Chief Deputy Clerk David Ciambruschini said in an email.

The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with federal judges over its deportation efforts.

One of the Maryland judges named as a defendant in Tuesday’s lawsuit, Paula Xinis, has called the administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador illegal. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked Xinis to impose fines against the administration for contempt, arguing that it ignored court orders for weeks to return him to the U.S. from El Salvador.

And on the same day the Maryland court issued its order pausing removals, a federal judge in Boston said the White House had violated a court order on deportations to third countries with a flight linked to South Sudan.

A fired Justice Department lawyer said in a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday that a top official at the agency had suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said court injunctions “designed to halt” the president’s agenda have undermined his authority since the first hours of his administration.

“The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: this pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she said in a statement announcing the lawsuit against Maryland’s district court.

The order signed by Russell says it aims to maintain existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings and access attorneys and give the government “fulsome opportunity to brief and present arguments in its defense.”

In an amended order, Russell said the court had received an influx of habeas petitions after hours that “resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete information about the location and status of the petitioners is elusive.”

The Trump administration has asked the Maryland judges to recuse themselves from the case. It wants a clerk to have a federal judge from another state hear it.

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

June 20 (UPI) — Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil on Friday night was freed from federal detention in central Louisiana after a federal judge ordered his release.

In Newark, N.J., U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said that prosecutors didn’t provide a legitimate justification for 104 days of detention since March 8 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Syrian national organized campus protests favoring Hamas while enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, which runs counter to U.S. foreign policy.

Farbiarz, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said it was “highly, highly unusual” the government still wanted him detained.

“Together, they suggest that there is at least something to the underlying claim that there is an effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner – and, of course, that would be unconstitutional,” the judge said.

He was ordered to surrender his passport and travel documents, and restricted to four states and Washington, D.C.

While in detention, Khalil missed the birth of his first child in New York in April, and he was allowed to hold him while in custody in May. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

Just before 8 p.m. CDT, Khalil walked out of the detention center in Jena, La., about 220 miles northwest of New Orleans, with his lawyers and wearing a kaffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.

He said no person “should actually be detained for protesting a genocide,” Khalil said. “Justice will prevail.”

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” Dr. Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud Khalil’s wife, said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”

Alina Das, one of Khalil’s lawyers and co-director of New York University’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, said: “The purpose of every step that the government has taken in this case has been to ensure that Mr. Khalil remains locked away until he is deported, as retaliation and punishment for his speech.”

After the birth of his son Deen, he wrote: “During your first moments, I buried my face in my arms and kept my voice low so that the 70 other men sleeping in this concrete room would not see my cloudy eyes or hear my voice catch. I feel suffocated by my rage and the cruelty of a system that deprived your mother and me of sharing this experience. Why do faceless politicians have the power to strip human beings of their divine moments?

“Since that morning, I have come to recognize the look in the eyes of every father in this detention center. I sit here contemplating the immensity of your birth and wonder how many more firsts will be sacrificed to the whims of the US government, which denied me even the chance of furlough to attend your birth.”

He was arrested outside student housing on the campus.

On June 11, Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release after determining that the government could no longer detain him over the claim he is a threat to the country’s foreign policy.

Then two days later, Trump administration said Khalil could be detained because they said he kept some prior work off his application for permanent residency. The judge allowed the detention to continue.

The Justice Department wanted him detained until an immigration judge could weigh the matter, claiming tFarbiarz does not have jurisdiction.

Farbiarz said it would be a “waste of time” to send the case to an immigration judge who would likely reach his same conclusion.

Other pro-Palestinian activists have also been released as their immigration cases go through the courts.

In April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a memo, citing an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The secretary of state can deport noncitizens if the secretary determines their presence in the country would result in “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

The arrest was carried out by the ICE, which is part of Homeland Security.

Khalil, who was born in 1995, grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and was granted permanent U.S. resident status. H

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s favorite target again this year was the California-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which saw 15 of 16 rulings overturned on review.

For decades, the high court’s conservatives have trained a skeptical eye on the historically liberal appeals court and regularly reversed its rulings, particularly on criminal law and the death penalty.

But by some estimates, this year saw the most Supreme Court reversals of 9th Circuit decisions since 1985. And the range of issues was broad, including immigration, religion, voting rights, property rights and class-action lawsuits.

In four years, President Trump appointed 10 judges to the appeals court, a sprawling Western jurisdiction that includes nine states and two U.S. territories. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush each named seven judges to the 9th Circuit in their eight years in the White House.

Trump’s 9th Circuit picks appeared to have played a significant role this year by pressing for internal review of rulings they didn’t like and joining sharp dissents that drew the interest of the Supreme Court.

“The more people who join the dissents, the more it gets the attention of the conservatives,” said one 9th Circuit judge, speaking on the condition of not being identified by name.

“This year was different,” another judge said. “This year was really different.”

When two owners of fruit-growing operations sued over a 1975 California state regulation that allowed union organizers to enter their property to speak to workers, they lost before a federal judge and the 9th Circuit.

Judge Richard A. Paez of Los Angeles, a Clinton appointee, said in a 2-1 decision that the state rule did not authorize “physical taking” of farmers’ property, as the lawsuit claimed, but rather temporary access to it.

Judge Sandra S. Ikuta of Los Angeles, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote a dissent arguing that the ruling was wrong and should be overturned. She said the state rule takes “an easement from the property owners” and gives it to union organizers, who are free to enter when they choose. In a dissent from the full court’s refusal to reconsider the panel’s decision, seven other 9th Circuit judges, six of them Trump appointees, agreed.

When the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 for the property owners last month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cited Ikuta’s dissent. “The access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property,” he wrote in Cedar Point vs. Hassid. The high court was split along ideological grounds.

The same divide was on display in the justices’ 6-3 decision shielding big donors to conservative charities and nonprofits from having their names disclosed to the California attorney general.

The 9th Circuit, in a 3-0 decision, had upheld the state’s policy of checking donors as an anti-fraud measure, but Ikuta wrote a dissent, joined by four Republican appointees, two of them nominated by Trump. The dissent said the full appeals court should “correct this error.” She argued that experience had shown that conservative donors have suffered “harassment and abuse” when their names have been disclosed.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the ruling, and Roberts cited Ikuta’s dissent in his opinion reversing the 9th Circuit in Americans for Prosperity Foundation vs. Bonta.

“There is still a large cohort of liberal judges” on the 9th Circuit, said Ed Whelan, a conservative legal analyst in Washington, “but there are now many conservative appointees who are vigilant in calling them out.”

In total, 47 judges sit on the 9th Circuit — 24 appointed by Republicans going back to President Nixon, and 23 named by Democrats starting with President Carter.

Many of those judges work part time. Of the full-time jurists, 16 are Democratic and 13 are Republican appointees.

The size of the circuit — the nation’s largest — partly explains why its cases are often subject to Supreme Court review.

“The 9th Circuit is so vastly larger than any other circuit that it is inevitable they are going to take more 9th Circuit cases,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school.

Although this year’s 9th Circuit reversal rate was unusually high, the high court in fact overturned 80% of all the cases it reviewed, Chemerinsky noted.

Moreover, only a tiny percentage of appellate decisions are reviewed by the Supreme Court. Typically, the 9th Circuit hands down about 13,000 rulings a year.

Chemerinsky noted the Supreme Court overturned several 9th Circuit cases on immigration and habeas corpus, the legal vehicle for releasing someone from detention. “The 9th Circuit is historically more liberal on immigration and habeas cases,” he said.

Some reversals occurred in cases that were not ideological, however: The high court overturned a 9th Circuit decision by Republican appointees on what constitutes a robocall.

Though the Supreme Court split along ideological lines on property rights, voting rights and conservative donor cases from the 9th Circuit, the justices were unanimous in reversing the 9th Circuit in several immigration cases.

On June 1, they overturned a unique 9th Circuit rule set by the late liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt. Over nearly 20 years, he had written that the testimony of a person seeking asylum based on a fear of persecution must be “deemed credible” unless an immigration judge made an “explicit” finding that they were not to be believed.

In one of his last opinions, Reinhardt approved of asylum for Ming Dai, a Chinese citizen who arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for refugee status for himself and his family. He said they were fleeing China’s forced abortion policy.

Only later did immigration authorities learn that his wife and daughter had returned to China because they had good jobs and schooling there, but the husband had no job to return to.

An immigration judge had set out the full story and denied the asylum application, only to be be reversed in a 2-1 ruling by a 9th Circuit panel. The panel cited Reinhardt’s rule and noted that although evidence emerged casting doubt on Dai’s claims, there had been no “explicit” finding by an immigration judge so his story had to be accepted.

“Over the years, our circuit has manufactured misguided rules regarding the credibility of political asylum seekers,” Senior Judge Stephen S. Trott wrote in dissent. Later, 11 other appellate judges joined dissents arguing for scrapping this rule.

Last fall, Trump administration lawyers cited those dissents and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case. They noted the importance of the 9th Circuit in asylum cases. Because of its liberal reputation, “the 9th Circuit actually entertains more petitions for review than all of the other circuits combined,” the lawyers said.

In overturning the appeals court in a 9-0 ruling, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch began by noting that “at least 12 members of the 9th Circuit have objected to this judge-made rule.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered another 9-0 ruling holding that an immigrant arrested for an “unlawful entry” after having been deported years ago may not contest the basis of his original deportation. The 9th Circuit had said such a defendant may argue his deportation was “fundamentally unfair,” but “the statute does not permit such an exception,” Sotomayor said in U.S. vs. Palomar-Santiago.

The high court’s furthest-reaching immigration ruling did not originate with the 9th Circuit, but it nonetheless overturned a 9th Circuit decision.

At issue was whether the more than 400,000 immigrants who had been living and working in the U.S. under temporary protected status were eligible for long-term green cards. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit said no, rejecting a green card for a Salvadoran couple who had entered the country illegally in the 1990s and had lived and worked in New Jersey ever since.

The 9th Circuit had taken the opposite view; Trump lawyers cited this split as a reason the high court should take up the New Jersey case. On June 7, Justice Elena Kagan spoke for the high court in ruling that the 3rd Circuit was right and the 9th Circuit wrong. To obtain lawful permanent status, the immigration law first “requires a lawful admission,” she said in Sanchez vs. Majorkas.

The 9th Circuit’s sole affirmance came in a significant case: By a 9-0 vote in NCAA vs. Alston, the justices agreed with the 9th Circuit that college sports authorities could be sued under antitrust laws for conspiring to make billions of dollars while insisting the star athletes go unpaid.

EU affirms its unwavering support for the ICC, denouncing US sanctions as a threat to judicial independence and justice.

The European Union “deeply regrets” the United States sanctions placed on four judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC), European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced sanctions on four judges whom the US accuses of taking “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the US and its allies.

Responding to the announcement on Friday, von der Leyen said the Hague-based court had the “full support” of the EU.

“The ICC holds perpetrators of the world’s gravest crimes to account & gives victims a voice,” von der Leyen said on X on Friday. “It must be free to act without pressure.”

United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said he was “profoundly disturbed” by the US decision.

“Attacks against judges for performance of their judicial functions, at national or international levels, run directly counter to respect for the rule of law and the equal protection of the law – values for which the US has long stood,” Turk said.

“Such attacks are deeply corrosive of good governance and the due administration of justice,” he added, calling for the sanctions to be withdrawn.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, which represents national governments of the 27 EU member states, also called the court “a cornerstone of international justice” and said its independence and integrity must be protected.

The Commission fully supports the @IntlCrimCourt & its officials.

The ICC holds perpetrators of the world’s gravest crimes to account & gives victims a voice.

It must be free to act without pressure.

We will always stand for global justice & the respect of international law.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) June 6, 2025

The US State Department said the sanctions were issued after the court made decisions to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a separate decision in 2020 to open an investigation into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

The four sanctioned judges include Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

EU member Slovenia said it “rejects pressure on judicial institutions” and urged the EU to use its blocking statute.

“Due to the inclusion of a citizen of an EU member state on the sanctions list, Slovenia will propose the immediate activation of the blocking act,” Slovenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a post on X.

The mechanism lets the EU ban European companies from complying with US sanctions that Brussels deems unlawful. The power has been used in the past to prevent Washington from banning European trade with Cuba and Iran.

Slovenia regrets the announced sanctions by the US🇺🇸 government against 4 judges of the @IntlCrimCourt , including a judge from #Slovenia. SI🇸🇮 rejects pressure on judicial institutions and influence on judicial operations, and courts must act in the interests of law and justice.… pic.twitter.com/xhwBj8XeMz

— MFEA Slovenia (@MZEZ_RS) June 5, 2025

The US sanctions mean the judges are added to a list of specially designated sanctioned individuals. Any US assets they have will be blocked and they are put on an automated screening service used not only by US banks but by many banks worldwide, making it very difficult for sanctioned people to hold or open bank accounts or transfer money.

This is not the first time the US has issued restrictions against an ICC official since Trump returned to office for a second term on January 20.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued a broad executive order threatening anyone who participates in ICC investigations with sanctions. Critics warned that such sweeping language could pervert the course of justice, for example, by dissuading witnesses from coming forward with evidence.

But Trump argued that the 2024 arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant necessitated such measures.

He also claimed that the US and Israel were “thriving democracies” that “strictly adhere to the laws of war” and that the ICC’s investigations threatened military members with “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.

June 6 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday sanctioned four International Criminal Court Judges, citing investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and Israeli leaders.

The State Department announced the sanctions against Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz Del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou from Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia over what it described as the court’s effort to “arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality.”

“We do not take this step lightly,” the State Department statement said. “It reflects the seriousness of the threat we face from the ICC’s politicization and abuse of power.”

The State Department noted that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza had authorized an investigation against U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, while Alapini Gansou and Hohler authorized warrants to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Neither the United States nor Israel recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court.

“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions, targeting America or our close ally, Israel,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a statement. “The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies. This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States.”

The sanctions impose a block on “all property and interests in property” of the aforementioned judges, and American citizens are also forbidden, as per the order, from doing any business with the four judges, unless they’ve been issued a precise license issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control or are exempt.

The Assembly of States Parties, which serves as the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC, announced Friday in a press release that it rejects the orders put forth by Trump and Rubio.

“Such actions risk undermining global efforts to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community and erode the shared commitment to the rule of law, the fight against impunity, and the preservation of a rules-based international order,” it said.

European Union Council President Antonio Costa said via social media Friday that the EU “strongly supports” the ICC.

“We must protect its independence and integrity. The rule of law must prevail over the rule of power,” he said.

The sanctions follow an executive order from Trump issued in February that considered “any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute protected persons” a threat to American national security and foreign policy, and declared economic sanctions against the ICC.

The order’s measures include the blocking of property and assets, and the suspension of entry to the United States of ICC officials, employees and agents, as well as their immediate family members.

The administration of President Donald Trump has followed through with a threat to sanction officials on the International Criminal Court (ICC), naming four judges whom it accuses of taking “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the United States and its allies.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a sharply worded written statement.

“The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio wrote.

“This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”

The four sanctioned judges include Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

As a result of the sanctions, the judges will see their US-based property and assets blocked. US-based entities are also forbidden from engaging in transactions with them, including through the “provision of funds, goods or services”.

The ICC quickly issued a statement in response, saying it stood behind its judges and “deplores” the Trump administration’s decision.

“These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe,” the statement said.

“Targeting those working for accountability does nothing to help civilians trapped in conflict. It only emboldens those who believe they can act with impunity.”

Who are the judges?

In a fact sheet, the State Department explained that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza were sanctioned for authorising an investigation into US troops in Afghanistan in 2020, during Trump’s first term as president.

Previously, the ICC had blocked a request to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, where the US had been leading a slow-grinding war from 2001 to 2021.

But it reversed course the following year, granting a prosecutor’s request to investigate US forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for war crimes in “secret detention facilities” in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Afghanistan, the court noted, was a member of the Rome Statute, which includes the 125 countries where the ICC has jurisdiction.

But the Trump administration at the time blasted the court’s decision, calling the ICC a “political institution masquerading as a legal body”. It has long argued that the US, which is not party to the Rome Statute, lies outside the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Another country that is not a member of the Rome Statute is Israel, which has used similar arguments to reject the ICC’s power over its actions in Palestine.

The second pair of judges named in Thursday’s sanctions — Alapini Gansou and Hohler — were sanctioned for their actions against Israeli leaders, according to the US State Department.

The US is Israel’s oldest ally, having been the first to recognise the country in 1948. It has since offered Israel strong support, including for its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 54,607 Palestinians so far.

Experts at the United Nations and human rights organisations have compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to a genocide, as reports continue to emerge of alleged human rights abuses.

In November 2024, those accusations spurred the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who have both been accused of war crimes in Gaza, including intentional attacks on civilians.

Alapini Gansou and Hohler reportedly took part in those proceedings.

Has this happened before?

This is not the first time that the US has issued restrictions against an ICC official since Trump returned to office for a second term on January 20.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued a broad executive order threatening anyone who participates in ICC investigations with sanctions. Critics warned that such sweeping language could pervert the course of justice, for example by dissuading witnesses from coming forward with evidence.

But Trump argued that the recent arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant necessitated such measures.

He also claimed that the US and Israel were “thriving democracies” that “strictly adhere to the laws of war” and that the ICC’s investigations threatened military members with “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.

“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel,” the executive order said.

Under that order, the US sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who had petitioned the court for the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. That, in turn, slowed the investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, and Khan later stepped away from his role amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

But Trump has a history of opposing the ICC, stretching back to his first term. In 2019, for instance, Trump announced his administration would deny or yank visas for ICC officials involved in investigating US troops in Afghanistan.

Then, in 2020, he sanctioned ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a court official named Phakiso Mochochoko for their involvement in the investigation. Those actions were later overturned under President Joe Biden.

Critics, however, warn that Trump’s actions could have dire consequences over the long term for the ICC, which relies on its member countries to execute orders like arrest warrants. The court itself has called for an end to the threats.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court over the tribunal’s investigation into alleged war crimes by Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank.

The State Department said Thursday that it would freeze any assets that the ICC judges, who come from Benin, Peru, Slovenia and Uganda, have in U.S. jurisdictions. The move is just the latest step that the administration has taken to punish the ICC and its officials for investigations undertaken against Israel and the United States.

“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio said. “This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”

In February, The Hague-based court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was placed on Washington’s list of “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons,” barring him from doing business with Americans and placing restrictions on his entry into the U.S. Khan stepped aside last month pending an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct.

Within minutes of the administration’s announcement, the court condemned its actions. “These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution,” ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said in a statement.

The new sanctions target ICC Judge Reine Alapini-Gansou, who is from the West African country of Benin and was part of the pretrial chamber of judges who issued the arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year. She also served on the bench that originally greenlighted the investigation into alleged Israeli crimes in the Palestinian territories in 2021.

The 69-year-old was also part of the panel of judges who issued the arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023. Last year, a court in Moscow issued a warrant for her arrest.

From Slovenia, Beti Hohler was elected as a judge in 2023. She previously worked in the prosecutor’s office at the court, leading Israel to object to her participation in the proceedings involving Israeli officials. Hohler said in a statement last year that she had never worked on the Palestinian territories investigation during her eight years as a prosecutor.

Bouth Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, from Peru, and Solomy Balungi Bossa, from Uganda, are appeals judges at the ICC. Each woman has worked on cases involving Israel.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of and neither recognizes the legitimacy of the court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes over his military response in Gaza after the Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023. Israel strongly denies the allegations.

Lee and Quell write for the Associated Press. Quell reported from The Hague.

May 28 (UPI) — A three-judge panel on Wednesday struck down President Donald Trump‘s unilateral tariffs, including 10% imposed on most U.S. trading partners, calling them “contrary to law.”

Despite several lawsuits filed in different courts, this is the first time a federal court has blocked them.

The New York-based Court of International Trade, in a 49-page opinion, said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy across-the-board tariffs.

The Trump administration can appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the U.S. trade deficits with other countries have “created a national emergency that has decimated American communities.”

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to CBS News.

The judges’ decision was based on two cases brought by a group of small businesses and 12 Democratic state attorneys general.

The judges were appointed by three presidents: Gary Katzmann by Barack Obama, Timothy Reif by Donald Trump and Jane Restani by Ronald Reagan.

“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA,” the judge wrote. “The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law.”

Separate tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico “do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the court also found. These went into effect on March 4.

Trump imposed a 25% tariff against Canadian and Mexican goods, except for items compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada, and 10% for energy and potash from the U.S. northern neighbor. China was hit with a 30% tariff.

The 10% duties went into effect on April 5.

The president has the right to impose tariffs, based on a 1970s court decision involving the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The judges said the president’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone without approval by Congress.

“Because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress, we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” they wrote. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers,” the ruling said.

Earlier this month, T. Kent Wetherell II, a district judge in Florida nominated by Trump, said the president has the authority on his own to impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.

Several lawsuits have been filed since Trump announced the tariffs on April 2 as “Liberation Day.”

Trump also announced on April 2 plans for harsher tariffs against the so-called worst offenders but one week later he paused them for 90 days until July. They include ones against America’s greatest allies: 26% against India, 25% against South Korea, 24% against Japan and 20% against the 27 members of the European Union.

Trump also had announced a 125% tariff on top of 30% against China but he suspended that. He also excluded tariffs on electronic products in China but last week threatened a 25% one on Apple products not made in the United States.

Last week Trump suggested 50% tariffs on the EU by June but paused them until July 9 on Sunday.

The tariffs have rattled U.S. stocks.

Mess with 50 Cent and he might come for your house — even if it takes him a few years to do it.

The rapper’s company Sire Spirits got the OK last week from a federal judge to seize the Connecticut home of former Sire executive Mitchell Green as partial payment toward a $7-million debt after a federal bankruptcy judge lifted an automatic stay that had prevented transfer of the property.

That took 50 Cent — real name Curtis Jackson III — and his legal team a little more than four years to accomplish, from when Green confessed to embezzling from his employer via a kickback scheme involving wholesalers until last week when the stay came off the house.

Branson Cognac and Chemin du Roi Champagne, both owned by Jackson, are managed through Sire Spirits. Green admitted in February 2020 that he had been raising prices and getting kickbacks from wholesalers that were labeled “agency fees,” the New York Post reported in 2022 and 2023.

Sire Spirits filed a request with the U.S. District Court, New York Southern, on Sept. 1, 2021, for confirmation of an arbitration agreement of a little less than $3.5 million in damages, according to court documents reviewed by The Times.

Green had been embezzling from 2018 into 2020, when someone attempted to blackmail him over the $2.2 million in kickbacks, according to AllHipHop. At that point, Green told his employer what he’d done. Sire Spirits fired him and went into arbitration, which was settled in Sire’s favor. With attorney fees and legal costs rolled in, the November 2022 final judgment totaled around $6.3 million.

In March 2023, the disgraced businessman filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which was still going on when Sire Spirits’ legal team secured a judgment lien against Green’s home in Westport, Conn., according to the court documents.

Green’s legal team had been providing court-ordered updates on the status of the property, always stating that Green was still in bankruptcy proceedings and therefore still had that automatic stay protecting his home. But last week, Sire’s attorneys asked the bankruptcy judge to get rid of the stay, saying that Green had no equity in the home due to the size of the judgment against him and therefore the property didn’t need to be part of his liquidation.

The judge agreed and lifted the stay.

The Connecticut home was appraised in late April at $1 million. That value will ultimately be credited against the judgment plus pre- and post-judgment interest, which now totals around $7 million.

Although Jackson has mentioned Branson Cognac recently on social media, he hasn’t said anything about the legal victory. In the last week, the rapper has been enjoying himself by poking fun at Sean “Diddy” Combs, a.k.a. “Puffy,” who is mired in a federal sex trafficking and conspiracy trial, where prosecution witnesses have been testifying.

“Cut, CUT … Wait a minute PUFFY’s got a gun, I can’t believe this I don’t feel safe … LOL,” Jackson wrote Tuesday on social media, posting screen shots of new testimony from Combs’ former assistant Capricorn Clark. Clark told the court that Combs said something about guns that she took as him making a threat against Jackson.

“Oh my goodness itty bitty Diddy wants me Dead,” the entrepreneur and provocateur said in a follow-up post. “I have to lay low, I think I’m gonna hide out at the playoff game tonight LOL.” He posted a comical picture of himself looking completely freaked out.

The New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers should be tipping off right about now.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday told conservative judges in Texas they must offer a hearing to detained Venezuelans whom the Trump administration wants to send to a prison in El Salvador.

The justices, over two dissents, rebuked Texas judges and Trump’s lawyers for moving quickly and secretly on a weekend in mid-April to put these men on planes.

That led to a post-midnight order from the high court that told the administration it may “not remove any member of the putative class of detainees.” The administration had argued it had the authority to deport the men as “alien enemies” under a wartime law adopted in 1798.

On Friday, the court issued an unusual eight-page order to explain their earlier decision. In doing so, the justices faulted a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for taking no action to protect the due process rights of the detained men.

The order carries a clear message that the justices are troubled by the Trump administration’s pressure to fast-track deportations and by the unwillingness of some judges to protect the rights to due process of law.

On a Saturday in mid-March, Trump’s immigration officials sent three planeloads of detainees from Texas to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador before a federal judge in Washington could intervene. The prisoners included Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who had an immigration order that was supposed to protect him from being sent back to his native El Salvador.

Afterward, Trump officials said the detained men, including Abrego Garcia, could not be returned to this country. They did so even though the Supreme Court had said they had a duty to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

The same scenario was nearly repeated in mid-April, but from a different prison in Texas.

ACLU lawyers rushed to file an emergency appeal with U.S. District Judge James Hendrix. They said some of the detained men were on buses headed for the airport. They argued they deserved a hearing because many of them said they were not members of a crime gang.

The judge denied the appeals for all but two of the detained men.

The 5th Circuit Court upheld the judge’s lack of action and blamed the detainees, saying they gave the judge “only 42 minutes to act.”

The Supreme Court disagreed with both on Friday and overturned a decision of the 5th Circuit.

“A district court’s inaction in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of serious, perhaps irreparable consequences” for the detained men, the justices wrote. “Here, the district court’s inaction — not for 42 minutes but for 14 hours and 28 minutes — had the practical effect of refusing an injunction to detainees facing an imminent threat of severe, irreparable harm.”

“The 5th Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings. Procedural due process rules are meant to protect” against “the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property,” the majority said. “We have long held that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity, at some time, to be heard.”

Justices Samuel A. Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented last month, and they did the same on Friday.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Trump vs. CASA Inc. Though the case arises out of President Trump’s January executive order on birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment, Thursday’s oral argument had very little to do with whether everyone born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen. Instead, the argument mostly focused on a procedural legal issue that is just as important: whether lower-court federal judges possess the legitimate power to issue nationwide injunctions to bring laws or executive orders to a halt beyond their districts.

There is a very straightforward answer to this question: No, they don’t. And it is imperative for American constitutionalism and republican sef-governance that the justices clearly affirm that.

Let’s start with the text. Article III of the Constitution establishes the “judicial Power” of the United States, which University of Chicago Law School professor Will Baude argued in a 2008 law review article “is the power to issue binding judgments and to settle legal disputes within the court’s jurisdiction.” If the federal courts can bind certain parties, the crucial question is: Who is bound by a federal court issuing an injunction?

In our system of governance, it is only the named parties to a given lawsuit that can truly be bound by a lower court’s judgment. As the brilliant then-Stanford Law School professor Jonathan Mitchell put it in an influential 2018 law review article, an “injunction is nothing more than a judicially imposed non-enforcement policy” that “forbids the named defendants to enforce the statute” — or executive order — “while the court’s order remains in place.” Fundamentally, as Samuel L. Bray observed in another significant 2017 law review article, a federal court’s injunction binds only “the defendant’s conduct … with respect to the plaintiff.” If other courts in other districts face a similar case, those judges might consider their peer’s decision and follow it, but they are not strictly required to do so. (For truly nationwide legal issues, the proper recourse is filing a class-action lawsuit, as authorized by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.)

One need not be a legal scholar to understand this commonsense point.

Americans are a self-governing people; it is we the people, according to the Constitution’s Preamble, who are sovereign in the United States. And while the judiciary serves as an important check on congressional or executive overreach in specific cases or controversies that come before it (as Article III puts it), there is no broader ability for lower-court judges to decide the law of the land by striking down a law or order for all of the American people.

As President Lincoln warned in his first inaugural address: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by” the judiciary, “the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Simply put, the patriots of 1776 did not rebel against the tyranny of King George III only to subject themselves, many generations later, to the black-robed tyranny of today. They fought for the ability to live freely and self-govern, and to thereby control their own fates and destinies. Judicial supremacy and the concomitant misguided practice of nationwide injunctions necessarily deprive a free people of the ability to do exactly that.

It is true that Chief Justice John Marshall’s landmark 1803 ruling in Marbury vs. Madison established that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” But it is also true, as Marshall noted in the less frequently quoted sentence directly following that assertion: “Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.” Note the all-important qualifier of “apply the rule to particular cases.” Marbury is often erroneously invoked to support judicial supremacy, but the modest case- and litigant-specific judicial review that Marshall established has nothing to do with the modern judicial supremacy and nationwide injunctions that proliferate today. It is that fallacious conception of judicial supremacy that was argued Thursday at the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., one of the swing votes in CASA, is not always known for judicial modesty. On the contrary, in clumsily attempting to defend his institution’s integrity, he has at times indulged in unvarnished judicial supremacist rhetoric and presided over an unjustifiable arrogation of power to what Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist No. 78, referred to as the “least dangerous” of the three branches.

If Roberts and his fellow centrist justices — namely, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — have any sense of prudence, they must join their more stalwart originalist colleagues in holding that nationwide injunctions offend the very core of our constitutional order. Such a ruling would not merely be a win for Trump; it would be a win for the Constitution and for self-governance itself.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Thursday to a lawyer for President Trump who was appealing rulings that blocked his plan to deny citizenship to newborns whose parents were in this country illegally or temporarily.

None of the justices spoke in favor of Trump’s plan to restrict birthright citizenship, and several were openly skeptical.

“Every court is ruling against you,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “There’s not going to be a lot of disagreement on this.”

If his plan were to take effect, “thousands of children will be born and rendered stateless,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

But Thursday’s hearing was devoted to a procedural question raised by the administration: Can a single federal judge issue a nationwide order to block the president’s plan?

Shortly after Trump issued his executive order to limit birthright citizenship, federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state declared it unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement nationwide.

In response, Trump’s lawyers asked the court to rein in the “epidemic” of nationwide orders handed by district judges.

It’s an issue that has divided the court and bedeviled both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Trump’s lawyers argued that on procedural grounds the judges overstepped their authority. But it is also procedurally unusual for a president to try to revise the Constitution through an executive order.

Thursday’s hearing did not appear to yield a consensus on what to do.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the plaintiffs should be required to bring a class-action claim if they want to win a broad ruling. But others said that would lead to delays and not solve problem.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said he was looking for a way to decide quickly. “How we get to the merits expeditiously?” he asked.

One possibility was to have the court ask for further briefing and perhaps a second hearing to decide the fundamental question: Can Trump acting on his own revise the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment?

Shortly after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress wrote the 14th Amendment, which begins with the words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Prior to that time, Americans were citizens of their states. Moreover, the Supreme Court in the infamous Dred Scott decision said Black people were not citizens of their states and could not become citizens even if they were living in a free state.

The amended Constitution established U.S. citizenship as a birthright. The only persons not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the laws of the United States were foreign diplomats and their families and, in the 19th century, Indians who were “not taxed” and were treated as citizens of their tribal nations.

However, Congress changed that rule in 1924 and extended birthright citizenship to Native Americans.

Since 1898, the Supreme Court has agreed that birthright citizenship extended to the native-born children of foreign migrants living in this country. The court said then “the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth, notwithstanding the alienage of parents” had been established by law.

The decision affirmed the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese parents who were living and working there, but who were not U.S. citizens.

But several conservative law professors have disputed the notion that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States means simply that people living here are subject to the laws here.

Instead, they say it refers more narrowly to people who owe their undivided allegiance to this country. If so, they contend it does not extend broadly to illegal immigrants or to students and tourists who are here temporarily.

On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order proclaiming the 14th Amendment does not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.” He said it would be U.S. policy to not recognize citizenship for newborns if the child’s mother or father was “not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

Immigrants rights groups sued on behalf of several pregnant women, and they were joined by 22 states and several cities.

Judges wasted no time in declaring Trump’s order unconstitutional. They said his proposed restrictions violated the federal law and Supreme Court precedent as well as the plain words of the 14th Amendment.

In mid-March, Trump’s lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court with “a modest request.” Rather than decide the “important constitutional questions” involving birthright citizenship, they urged the justices to rein in the practice of district judges handing down nationwide orders.

They have “reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration,” they said.

A month later, and without further explanation, the court agreed to hear arguments based on that request.

The justices are likely to hand down a decision in Trump vs. CASA, but it may not come until late June.

The Parliament of the Maldives has impeached two judges of the country’s Supreme Court, deepening a political crisis triggered by President Mohamed Muizzu’s push to amend the constitution and strip legislators of their seats if they switch political parties.

The Parliament, where the governing People’s National Congress holds a supermajority, voted on Wednesday to remove Justices Azmiralda Zahir and Mahaz Ali Zahir on allegations of abuse of power.

The vote, which passed 68 – 11, took place as dozens of opposition supporters rallied outside the Parliament House, calling for Muizzu’s resignation and an end to what they called the intimidation of judges.

The move comes more than two months after the judicial watchdog, dominated by Muizzu’s allies, suspended the two judges and their colleague, Justice Husnu al-Suood. At the time, the seven-member Supreme Court bench had been holding hearings into a petition challenging the anti-defection measures.

Suood later resigned from the top court, accusing Muizzu and Attorney General Ahmed Usham of intimidating all the judges of the Supreme Court to secure a judgement in their favour.

The president and his lawyer deny the charges.

“I do not interfere with the judiciary,” Muizzu told reporters during a 14-hour news conference on May 3. “I have never done so. I do not control the [the judicial watchdog].”

The crisis has paralysed the Maldives’s Supreme Court, halting hearings in all ongoing cases, including on the constitutional amendments. It has also raised fears of renewed instability in the Indian Ocean honeymoon destination, which held its first multiparty elections in 2008, but has been roiled by political turmoil since, including a coup d’etat, disputed elections, and the killings and jailing of dissidents.

‘Attack on judiciary’

Azmiralda and Mahaz denounced their impeachment on Wednesday.

“This is an attack on the Maldivian judiciary. It is no ordinary matter to bring the Maldives Supreme Court to a halt,” Azmiralda said in a statement. “My hope is that one day, when the rule of law is established in this country … all of the various officials who took part in destroying the Supreme Court are held accountable.”

The case against the two judges stems from the arrest of Azmiralda’s husband, Ismail Latheef, during a police raid on a spa where he was receiving a massage in the Maldivian capital, Male, on December 4 of last year.

The incident happened two weeks after Muizzu ratified the anti-defection measures.

The controversial amendments stipulate that legislators elected on a political party ticket would lose their seat if they switch parties, or if they resign or are expelled from their party. The provisions effectively allow Muizzu to maintain his supermajority in Parliament, where his party controls 79 of the chamber’s 93 seats.

The president has argued they are necessary to “improve political stability”, but opponents say they would destroy the country’s system of checks and balances.

At the time of Latheef’s arrest, a former member of parliament had filed a petition at the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the amendments, but the bench had yet to decide to take up the case.

Latheef was held overnight for more than 12 hours, on charges of soliciting a prostitute, but was released by a judge at the Criminal Court. In the ruling, the judge noted that the masseuse treating Latheef was fully clothed at the time of the raid, and that the room they were in was unlocked.

The prosecutor’s office later shelved the case against Latheef, citing a lack of evidence.

But after the Supreme Court began reviewing the constitutional amendments in February, the watchdog Judicial Services Commission (JSC) took up a separate case against Azmiralda and Mahaz, claiming the two judges had unlawfully lobbied lower court judges to secure Latheef’s release.

The JSC recommended that the Parliament impeach them last month.

‘No ulterior motives’

The judges have denied the charges, with lawyers for Azmiralda saying that the case was “manufactured by top government officials to suspend” them “in order to influence the outcome of the constitutional case before the Supreme Court”.

Usham, the Attorney General, has told Al Jazeera that the government “categorically denies these allegations”.

“There is absolutely no truth to the claim that the executive branch had any hand in the JSC’s [the judicial watchdog’s] decision,” he wrote in an email. “The suspension was pursuant to law and… any suggestion of ulterior motives is firmly rejected by the Government.”

The case, however, has drawn criticism from the United Nations and rights groups.

Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN’s special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, expressed grave concern last month over the action against the three judges, saying they appear to be aimed at undermining the Supreme Court’s judicial review of the anti-defection measures.

“The disciplinary proceedings brought against three of the Supreme Court’s Justices appear to violate the principle that judges can only be dismissed on serious grounds of misconduct or incompetence and in accordance with fair procedures guaranteeing objectivity and impartiality as provided for by the Constitution or the law,” she wrote. “The pressure of suspensions, disciplinary proceedings and investigations may amount to an interference in the independence of this institution.”