Category: Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly responded to a lawmaker’s question on the definition of habeas corpus during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the Department of Homeland Security budget for the upcoming year on Tuesday.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Noem, “What is habeas corpus?”

The secretary responded, saying, “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”

“Excuse me, that’s — that’s incorrect,” Hassan interjected.

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires, requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” she said.

“Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea,” Hassan added. “As a senator from the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans.”

Hassan then asked, “Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?”

“I support habeas corpus,” Noem responded. “I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”

Hassan interrupted Noem, saying, “It has never been done. It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”

Later in the hearing, Noem denied any involvement in a reported reality television show featuring the Department of Homeland Security in which immigrants would compete for U.S. citizenship.

“We have no knowledge of a reality show,” Noem said. “There may have been something submitted to the department, but I did not know anything about this reality show until the reporter reached out.”

Noem then took aim at The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, saying, “That article — in fact, they had to change it later because they lied so bad, and they had us on the record saying I had no knowledge of a reality show. The department didn’t — there may have been something submitted somewhere along the line because there are proposals pitched to the department, but me and my executive team have no knowledge of a reality show and it’s not under consideration.”

“That article was completely inaccurate, completely inaccurate and false, and the fact that they printed it when they knew it was false was a dereliction of their work,” she added.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is hosting South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday amid tensions between the two nations over the U.S. resettlement of white South Africans.

Trump and other top officials have claimed that a race-based “genocide” is unfolding against white farmers in the country. South African officials, including Ramaphosa, have vehemently pushed back, arguing that is not the case.

“It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” President Trump said last week. “Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

That same day, the first flight of Afrikaners arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Ramaphosa responded that the individuals who went to the U.S. “do not fit the definition of a refugee” — someone who is leaving their country out of fear of persecution due to race, religion, political opinion or nationality.

“And I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone, and I — he asked, he said, ‘What’s happening down there?'” Ramaphosa said. “And I said, ‘President, what you’ve been told by those people who are opposed to transformation back home in South Africa is not true.'”

The South African government, in a statement last week, said its police statistics on farm-related crimes “do not support allegations of violent crime targeted at farmers generally or any particular race.”

The dozens of Afrikaners who arrived in the U.S. last week had their applications fast-tracked under an executive order issued by Trump in February titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.”

The order contends the South African government passed a law allowing it to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation” in a “shocking disregard of its’ citizen rights.” It instructs that the U.S. will not provide aid or assistance to the nation, and that the U.S. “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees.”

The law passed by South Africa cited by the administration aims to address land injustices established during apartheid. It states land can be expropriated in the public interest and in most cases must be subject to compensation, the amount of which must have been agreed to by the owners or approved by court. Experts say the law is comparable to similar legislation around the world regarding eminent domain.

In addition to Trump’s executive order, his administration expelled South Africa’s Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from the U.S. earlier this year.

Trump has been scrutinized for prioritizing Afrikaners while moving to restrict immigration from elsehwere, including from Afghanistan, Venezuela and Haiti.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked to defend the administration’s position while testifying before a Senate panel on Tuesday.

“I think those 49 people that came strongly felt they were persecuted, and they passed every sort of check mark that needed to be checked off,” Rubio said. “The president identified it as a problem and wanted to use it as an example.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said he believed the claim there is persecution of Afrikaner farmers was “completely specious” and noted the U.S. hadn’t let in Black South Africans during apartheid.

“I think that the United States has a right to allow into this country and prioritize the allowance of who they want to allow it come in,” Rubio responded.

Elon Musk, a South African native and a top adviser to the president during his second term, has also been vocal about the plight of South African landowners, amplifying claims of “white genocide.”

Ramaphosa on Tuesday projected optimism about the upcoming talks with Trump.

“We’re always ready and we hope to have really good discussions with President Trump and his fellow government colleagues. Looking forward to a really good and positive meeting, and we’re looking forward to a really good outcome for our country, for our people, for the jobs in our country and good trade relations,” Ramaphosa told reporters as he arrived at the South African Embassy in Washington.

He said trade is the “the most important, that is what has brought us here” and that they want to strengthen economic ties between the two nations in a video posted to X. Ramaphosa also said he and Trump will discuss Israel as well as Russia and Ukraine.

Ramaphosa didn’t mention the United States’ prioritization of the resettlement of white South African refugees in the videos posted to social media, though he vowed to protect South Africa’s sovereignty.

“We will always do what is best for South Africans,” he said.

ABC News’ Shannon Kingston contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled plans to begin building a sophisticated new missile defense shield that could intercept threats from space, estimating the endeavor would cost some $175 billion and become operational in three years.

The project “Golden Dome,” which will be led by Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, echoes President Ronald Reagan’s failed “Star Wars” program, which was criticized for being overly ambitious and siphoning money away from other national priorities. The White House cited advancements in technology as a reason why some of Reagan’s vision was now possible.

“This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term,” Trump said in announcing the plan. “So we’ll have it done in about three years. Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.”

Trump began calling for a U.S. missile defense shield similar to Israel’s Iron Dome a year ago on the campaign trail after watching Israel deflect some 300 missiles and drones amid Iran’s attacks that spring. Military officials said at the time that they hadn’t expressed a need for such a comprehensive shield to defend the U.S., while critics noted the U.S. wasn’t under threat from its neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and is buffered by two oceans.

Still, some experts say the idea of improving the nation’s ability to fend off aerial threats is long overdue.

Tom Karako, a missile defense expert, said the current U.S. system is focused mostly on the ability to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles from rogue states like North Korea. But the U.S. needs better protection when it comes to other threats like drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons, he said.

“The truth is, we’re pretty vulnerable,” said Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project and a senior fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

One question, though, is how much capability the U.S. can develop in just three years, particularly considering Trump’s stated goal of developing a network of space-based interceptors.

“It’s not to say that it can’t be done sooner than perhaps some folks think, but three years is going to be pushing it for some of those things,” Karako said.

Standing beside Trump in the Oval Office was Guetlein, the Pentagon’s vice chief of space operations who will lead the project, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said the project was possible now because technology has improved since the Reagan days.

“The technology wasn’t there. Now it is,” Hegseth said of Reagan’s “Star Wars” program. “And you’re following through to say we will protect the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear.”

On Capitol Hill, early indications were that Republicans would support the effort with Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, promising to include a $25 billion “down payment” in an upcoming spending bill.

Democrats, though, have questioned the steep price tag. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the committee, noted last week the White House requested some $113 billion in its budget for next year without outlining a clear plan on what the program would achieve and when.

“That’s essentially a slush fund at this point,” said Reed, D-Rhode Island.

Trump’s talk of building “the greatest dome of them all” seemed to originate on the campaign trail. After watching Israel’s successful use of its Iron Dome, Trump’s calls for a U.S. version was met with cheers from crowds at his rallies so much that Republicans included the construction of a U.S. missile shield in its party platform ahead of the 2024 elections. In January, Trump signed an executive order calling on Hegseth to make it happen.

“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” Trump wrote in the Jan. 27 order.

Since then, “the Defense Department has gathered the brightest minds and best technical talent available to review a full range of options that considers current U.S. missile defense technology and cutting-edge innovation to rapidly develop and field a dependable umbrella of protection for our homeland,” Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesman and Hegseth’s senior adviser, said earlier this week amid reports the Defense Department has been working on the proposal.

Still unclear is exactly how comprehensive the system would be. Also in question is whether such an ambitious program might siphon away money from other vital programs. The Air Force, for example, is in the process of replacing 400 of its intercontinental ballistic missiles built in the 1970s with new ones.

“Some U.S. technology in space such as space-based sensors and air and missile defense exist today, but all of the systems comprising the Golden Dome architecture will need to be seamlessly integrated,” Hegseth said in a statement. “Golden Dome will be fielded in phases, prioritizing defense where the threat is greatest.”

Trump’s plan appears to be on the lower end of congressional cost estimates, but dramatically sooner than thought possible. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the U.S. would need to spend anywhere from $161 billion to $542 billion over 20 years to develop and launch a network of space-based interceptors.

According to the CBO, these cost estimates are lower than they would have been years ago because of a decline in the cost of available launch services.

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(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio returned to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, appearing before his former colleagues for the first time since his confirmation to defend the president’s foreign policy and the administration’s budget priorities for the year ahead.

Rather than a warm homecoming, Rubio was quickly on defense, with several Senate Democrats pressing the secretary on the State Department’s reorganization and spending cuts, as well as Middle East policy and El Salvador detentions.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., spent much of his allotted time criticizing Rubio on a number of issues, including his coziness with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and the Trump administration’s failure to “facilitate” in returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was erroneously deported to El Salvador, to the United States. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland at the time he was deported.

“In the case of El Salvador, absolutely, absolutely, we deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with. And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gang banger, and that and the evidence is going to be clear,” Rubio asserted, referring to Van Hollen meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador in April.

“Mr. Chairman, he can’t make unsubstantiated comments like that,” Van Hollen protested. “Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to the federal court of the United States because he hasn’t done it under oath!”

Van Hollen has said neither man drank from the glasses that he said officials put on the table during the meeting that appeared to have liquid inside with salt or sugar rims.

“No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy,” Rubio shot back. “No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them, and if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I have under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch. Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.”

“You’re just blowing smoke now,” Van Hollen said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, had to intervene in the at-times contentious conversation as Van Hollen compared Rubio’s policy on deportations and the El Salvador detentions of migrants to the “shameful era” of McCarthy-era witch hunts and the red scare, saying the administration’s “campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy.”

“Back then, it took one voice, attorney Joseph Welch, to cut through the hysteria with a simple question that marked the beginning of the end of that shameful era: ‘Have you no sense of decency?'” Van Hollen said as he concluded his line of questioning. “And I would ask you the same, Secretary Rubio. You have shown, with your words and your actions what your answer is. I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you as secretary of state.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning turned up the heat on House Republican holdout votes endangering passage of the megabill aimed at advancing his legislative agenda, sources told ABC News.

Trump spoke to the conference as more than a dozen Republicans seek additional changes to the legislation. Without changes, there is enough opposition to defeat it as Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose three votes.

Trump used an expletive to urge House Republican conference members not to mess with Medicaid and to vote in favor of his bill Tuesday morning, sources told ABC News.

That demand comes as hard-liners push for stricter Medicaid cuts just a day or so before the massive bill — full of a laundry list of Trump’s campaign promises — is expected to head to the floor. Johnson is aiming for a vote on Wednesday.

Another sticking point among Republican holdouts is a cap on state and local tax deductions. And sources tell ABC News that Trump told the cadre of Republicans pushing for a higher cap on the state and local tax deduction (SALT) to take the current deal on the table and “move on.”

Trump urged Republicans to stick together and get the bill done — and deliver for the American people, according to a White House official.

A White House official told ABC News that Trump is losing patience with the Republican holdouts, including the SALT Caucus and the House Freedom Caucus. The president made it clear that he wants every Republican to vote yes on the bill, the official added.

Leaving the House GOP conference meeting, Trump said the meeting went well, but pushed back against those reports that he’s losing patience with Republican holdouts.

“I think it was a really great; that was a meeting of love. Let me tell you, that was love in that room. There was no shouting. I think it was a meeting of love,” Trump told reporters, later adding that anyone who said he was losing patience was “a liar.”

Projecting confidence, Trump said “we’re going to get it done,” adding that “we’re ahead of schedule.”

So was Trump’s pressure campaign enough to move those on the fence to the yes column?

Asked if he thinks Trump moved any votes, holdout Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said “yeah, I suppose so.” Still Biggs didn’t commit to supporting the bill.

Fellow holdout Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said Trump “did a great job,” but declined to say whether Trump changed his mind.

Other hard-liners tell ABC News that they still believe changes to the bill — like those additional Medicaid cuts — could still be on the table. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he believes more “tweaks” can be made before the bill goes to the House Rules Committee at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning.

But time is running out and Trump was clear he doesn’t want any more delays.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to Johnson and Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, requesting they “immediately reschedule” that 1 a.m. Rules Committee meeting.

The New York Democrat decried the legislation for what he called the “largest” cut to Medicaid and nutritional assistance in American history.

“It is deeply troubling that you would attempt to jam this legislation down the throats of the American people,” Jeffries wrote in a statement to his colleagues. “What else are you hiding?”

“It is imperative that you immediately reschedule the meeting so that it may be debated in the light of day,” Jeffries added. Republicans scheduled the hearing at the earliest possible hour in compliance with House rules after the Budget Committee approved the package late Sunday.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump — flanked by Johnson — issued a stern warning for Republicans who don’t fall in line on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” warning they could be primaried if they vote against his signature bill.

Trump emphasized that the GOP is a unified party, but also added that people aren’t going to get everything they want in the bill.

“Well it’s not a question of holdouts, we have a tremendously unified party. We’ve never had a party like this. There’s some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don’t like or that they’re not going to get, but I think we’re going to have tremendous — not luck. We have tremendous talent,” Trump said.

After the president left, Republican leaders delivered remarks but took no questions — telling reporters he had to “tie up the remaining loose ends” with holdouts.

“Failure is simply not an option,” the Louisiana Republican said. “We have to get this done.”

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — In a copy of “Original Sin, President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” obtained by ABC News, authors and journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson allege that former President Joe Biden hid information about the cancer diagnosis of his late son, Beau Biden, who was an elected official at the time.

Not only do the authors claim that this misled the public about Beau Biden’s mental fitness, they also say this demonstrates “the Bidens’ capacity for denial and the lengths they would go to avoid transparency about health issues.”

Released Tuesday, this new detail comes just days after Joe Biden’s aggressive prostate cancer was announced.

Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis was announced Sunday via statement from his office. According to the statement, he was seen by medical professionals “last week” for “a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” and “on Friday, he was diagnosed.”

“Original Sin” claims that Joe Biden and Beau Biden falsely touted Beau’s “clean bill of health,” intentionally choosing to say “nothing” despite being aware of his glioblastoma diagnosis and how advanced it was.

In the summer of 2013, Beau Biden collapsed during a family vacation and underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor.

“Beau’s tumor was definitely glioblastoma. Stage IV,” Biden later wrote about the postoperative findings, according to the book. The authors say Joe Biden’s other son Hunter Biden called it “a death sentence.”

Beau Biden’s neurologist told the public that doctors had removed a “small lesion” from his brain, but it was in fact a “tumor slightly larger than a golf ball,” Biden later revealed, according to the book.

The book also alleges that Beau remained in office as Delaware’s attorney general, a position he held from 2007 to 2015, despite displaying signs of deterioration such as speech difficulties and “secretly” undergoing treatments around the world where he checked in under an alias.

In a statement released Tuesday, a Biden spokesman said, “There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy. Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency,” a Biden spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News reacting to the publication of “Original Sin.”

“In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill,” the statement added.

The authors say Beau Biden’s wife Hallie publicly questioned this apparent cover-up, allegedly telling others that “she didn’t understand why they had to keep his illness a secret.”

ABC News is attempting to reach Hallie Biden for comment.

The book goes on to claim that Beau Biden’s death and the emotional toll it had on the then-vice president demonstrated the “first signs he was deteriorating” in 2015, citing a senior White House official that described Joe Biden’s brain as seeming to “dissolve like someone poured hot water” immediately after Beau’s death.

“Original Sin” has additional allegations against Biden and his mental fitness during his presidency, including details about his physical and mental impairments and alleged efforts to cover those impairments up.

In an appearance on ABC’s “The View” earlier this month, both Biden and former first lady Dr. Jill Biden pushed back against the slate of new books from reporters claiming that Biden was dealing with cognitive decline at the end of his presidency.

“They are wrong,” he said. “There’s nothing to sustain that.”

-ABC News Averi Harper, Oren Oppenheim and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will announce initial plans for the “Golden Dome” missile defense plan, a massive missile shield system meant to protect the United States, at the White House Tuesday afternoon, three U.S. officials confirmed.

Trump will be joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and one official said Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, will be there and will be announced as the official leading the department’s planning for the ground-based and space-based missile defense system.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEWARK, N.J.) — New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver was charged on Monday for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers outside of an ICE detention facility earlier this month.

Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced she was charging the congresswoman with assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer.

On May 9, McIver, along with a few other members of Congress and Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, were protesting outside of Delaney Hall, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.

Tensions at the protest escalated and pushing and shoving allegedly occurred, according to the U.S. attorney.

“Representative LaMonica McIver assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 111(a)(1),” Habba said in a statement. “That conduct cannot be overlooked by the chief federal law enforcement official in the State of New Jersey, and it is my Constitutional obligation to ensure that our federal law enforcement is protected.”

“No one is above the law — politicians or otherwise. It is the job of this office to uphold Justice, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work,” Habba added.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed Habba’s decision in a post on social media.

“If any person, regardless of political party, influence or status, assaults a law enforcement officer as we witnessed Congresswoman McIver do, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Noem wrote on X. “We thank our brave ICE law enforcement officers for their service to this great nation.”

President Donald Trump also claimed McIver was “out of control” while commenting on the charges at the Capitol on Tuesday.

“I have no idea who she is,” Trump told reporters. “That woman was out of control. She was shoving federal agents. She was out of control. The days of that crap are over in this country. We’re going to have law and order.”

Following the charges, McIver alleged in a statement that the decision was politically motivated.

“The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight,” McIver said. “This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court,” she added.

The complaint alleges McIver tried to “thwart the arrest” of Baraka after he had been told to leave the secured area of the facility because, unlike the congresspeople, he did not have lawful authority to be there. She is accused of making “forcible contact” with authorities, including allegedly slamming her forearm into a Homeland Security Investigations agent and pushing and using “each of her forearms to forcibly strike” an ICE officer, according to the complaint.

The complaint includes multiple stills from officer body camera footage showing what prosecutors allege were McIver’s “multiple attempts to forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with the agents attempting to take the Mayor into custody.”

The charges against Baraka were dropped by the U.S. attorney.

Baraka said in a statement on X that he was glad the trespassing charge against him was dismissed, but that he stands with McIver and believes she will be “vindicated.”

“I want to be clear: I stand with LaMonica, and I fully expect her to be vindicated,” the mayor wrote.

Top House Democrats also released a joint statement defending McIver on Monday, vowing to “vigorously” respond to what they say is an illegitimate abuse of power.

“An attack on one of us is an attack on the American people. House Democrats will respond vigorously in the days to come at a time, place and manner of our choosing,” the leaders said.

Additionally, the party leaders noted that McIver toured the facility after the alleged altercation. “There is no credible evidence that Rep. McIver engaged in any criminal activity, and she would not have been permitted to tour the facility had she done anything wrong,” the lawmakers claimed.

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(WASHINGTON) — A 20-year-old Venezuelan man seeking a return to the United States after being sent to El Salvador won a legal victory over President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday.

A divided panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to leave in place an order directing the Trump administration to facilitate the man’s return after a federal judge in Maryland determined that his deportation breached an existing legal settlement.

The man, identified in court records by the pseudonym “Cristian,” challenged his removal after he was sent in mid-March on a flight to El Salvador following President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, found in April that Cristian’s removal violated a class action settlement on behalf of individuals who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors and later sought asylum.

The administration then asked the appellate court to reverse Gallagher’s order, arguing that the directive to return Cristian to the U.S. “would impose serious foreign-policy harms on the Government and threaten the public interest, while doing nothing for Cristian,” according to the government’s court filings.

Circuit Judges DeAndrea Gist Benjamin and Roger Gregory, writing for the panel’s majority, rejected the administration’s reasoning.

“The argument that the Government would be ‘irreparably harmed’ by facilitating Cristian’s return rings hollow,” Benjamin wrote. “Cristian’s injury arises from the fact that instead of having his asylum application adjudicated on the merits—as the Settlement Agreement guaranteed—he was summarily removed,” added Benjamin, a Biden appointee to the circuit court.

The government argued in its motion to stay that removing Cristian under the Alien Enemies Act was not a breach of the settlement agreement, which was finalized in 2024.

The government also challenged Gallagher’s order on the grounds that an “Indicative Asylum Decision,” issued by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) weeks after Cristian’s deportation, determined he would be denied asylum because he is an admitted Tren de Aragua gang member, which he denies.

The government also notes Cristian has a felony drug possession conviction in Harris County, Texas.

ABC News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and Cristian’s lawyers for a comment.

The appellate panel majority, however, determined that the “indicative” asylum decision, reached without an opportunity for Cristian to contest its findings, “was not an authentic change in factual circumstances.”

In a concurring opinion, Gregory, a Clinton appointee, criticized the Trump administration for its attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to excuse its alleged breach of the settlement agreement in this case.

“The government’s argument in this case is that this plainly invalid invocation of the Act can be used to void any and all contractual obligations of the federal government. That cannot be — and is not — the rule of law,” Gregory wrote.

In his dissent, Circuit Judge Julius Richardson — a Trump appointee — argued that the district court’s order exceeded its authority; and that returning Cristian to the United States would be futile, given the near-certainty that his application for asylum would be denied.

“Still, it is in this case that the district court has directed the Executive to engage in specific diplomatic negotiations with a foreign power. Despite serious merits problems and little reason to think its order would help Cristian, the district court entered a more potent injunction than any other court has in the numerous Alien Enemies cases pending across the country.” Richardson wrote.

The Trump administration could now ask the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case or petition for review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Joe Biden’s office announced on Sunday that he was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.

Biden’s office also said the cancer had metastasized, spreading to his bones.

Although some people were left wondering why the cancer was caught only after reaching a Gleason score of 9, oncology experts told ABC News that it’s not uncommon for older prostate cancer patients to receive a diagnosis after the disease has advanced or spread.

“Prostate cancer is something that we always hope screening will identify early, when the cancer is all still inside the prostate,” Dr. Alicia Morgans, a genitourinary medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and a member of the board of directors of the no-profit Zero Prostate Cancer, told ABC News.

“Even if we screen everybody perfectly, there will never be 100% detection of prostate cancer because, in truth, cancer does not follow a rule book,” Morgans continued. “And just because we are trying to catch it early doesn’t mean it necessarily is present when we screen.”

PSA levels may not have been checked

One screening test for prostate cancer involves a blood test that measures the level of prostate-specific antigens, which are proteins made by cells in the prostate gland.

Although there is no cutoff level that clearly indicates the presence of cancer, many doctors use a cutoff of 4 nanograms per milliliter to recommend further tests with a urologist, according to the American Cancer Society.

For an advanced form of cancer like Biden’s, a recent PSA test would have likely shown elevated levels.

However, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against PSA-based screening for men age 70 and older due to harms such as false positives leading to more tests or a diagnosis of problems that would not have caused symptoms or death.

Morgans said it’s unclear what the former president and his doctor discussed regarding screening, but it’s plausible that he did not undergo PSA screening.

“It is absolutely possible that President Biden, like so many men over that age, have decided to stop doing PSA screening because they’ve decided that it is not consistent with their overall health goals and wishes, and that is completely reasonable,” Morgans said.

Cancer could have grown rapidly

Morgans said some men in their 70s and 80s do still undergo PSA screening for prostate cancer based on conversations with their primary care physicians and what’s right for them.

Even so, it’s possible that the results were normal — either due to a false negative or because their cancer was not present at the time, she said.

“Prostate cancer can develop between screening tests,” Morgans said. “It doesn’t necessarily grow super slowly. It can develop between screenings, and it can be aggressive when it does develop; that doesn’t mean it’s not treatable.”

Screening results could have been borderline

Dr. Alan Bryce, chief clinical officer for City of Hope Cancer Center Phoenix, said there may be some patients who receive PSA screening results showing borderline-high results who decide not to pursue further testing.

“There are absolutely scenarios where that conversation happens with a patient or their family member,” Bryce told ABC News. “All of them might say, ‘You know what? Given where we’re at in life, we’re not that worried about this. Let’s go ahead and wait another year.'”

Bryce, a medical oncologist specializing in prostate and testicular cancers, added that shared decision-making is important when it comes to deciding if a patient wants to pursue prostate cancer screening — and if they want to test further following test results that are abnormal.

“As physicians, we present patients with options and recommendations but, at the end of the day, it’s still the patient’s decision,” he said. “So, it’s entirely possible that a conversation happens and the patient decides they don’t want to proceed with further workup. Maybe they don’t want to do a scan, maybe they don’t want to do a biopsy.”

No symptoms present

Advanced prostate cancer can present symptoms such as a weak urination stream; needing to urinate more often; erectile dysfunction; fatigue; weight loss; loss of bladder or bowel control; and pain in the ribs, hips and spine when the cancer had spread to the bones, according to the ACS.

Morgans said just because a patient has advanced prostate cancer, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will exhibit symptoms.

“I would say that it’s more common than not that people sit in my office and tell me, ‘You know, I don’t have any symptoms. I don’t understand how I have this cancer. I certainly don’t understand how it could have spread outside of my prostate,'” Morgans said. “It is very common for people to be completely asymptomatic.”

Bryce added that some symptoms, such as difficulty urinating or a weak urination stream, may be due to an enlarged prostate, which is common in older men.

“It is entirely normal that in older men, there is a degree of urinary obstruction that just happens with age,” he said. “It’s entirely possible that a man just has normal symptoms associated with aging and nothing about it stands out as being related to a cancerous process.”

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