Judge blocks Trump administration from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote
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(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape election processes is an attempt to “short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order,” a federal judge in Washington, D.C. wrote Thursday afternoon.
In a 120-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked the Trump administration from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and ordering that election officials “assess” the citizenship of anyone who receives public assistance before allowing them to register. She also barred the Election Assistance Commission from withholding federal funding from states that did not comply with the order.
“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections,” she wrote. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”
After Trump issued an executive order last month “preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections,” three separate lawsuits were filed in the D.C. federal court to challenge the policy, including lawsuits filed by the Democratic National Committee (with New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries), the League of United Latin American Citizens and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“These consolidated cases are about the separation of powers,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
She concluded that Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape elections exceeds his own authority, noting that the Department of Justice “offered almost no defense of the President’s order.”
If Trump wishes to reform election processes, she wrote, Congress would be the appropriate branch to do so, adding Congress is “currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will travel to the new “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center in Florida‘s Everglades on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Monday.
The Trump administration is turning the remote Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport into a facility that officials say will eventually hold up to 5,000 people. Officials say operations will start on Tuesday. The facility is part of Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations by expanding detention capacity. The president has already sent migrants to Guantánamo Bay and the mega-prison in El Salvador.
Leavitt said Trump’s visit will be a chance for the president to tout the funding for more detention facilities and efforts to enact Trump’s mass deportation policy that are in his megabill that the Senate could vote on Tuesday before sending to the House before Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
“I think his trip to this detention facility actually underscores the need to pass the One Big, Beautiful Bill because we need more detention facilities across the country,” Leavitt said.
A source familiar with the planning tells ABC it will cost Florida $450 million a year, and officials say some of that money will be reimbursed from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program.
Leavitt described the facility’s remote location in her briefing on Monday.
“There’s only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight,” she said. “It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain. The facility will have up to 5,000 beds to house, process and deport criminal illegal aliens.”
“This is an efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history,” Leavitt added.
When asked about the remote and dangerous location, Leavitt said that it was a feature of the facility to help prevent detainees from escaping.
“Well look, when you have illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals in a detention facility surrounded by alligators, yes, I do think that’s a deterrent for them to try to escape,” she said. “We do know that some of these illegal criminals have escaped from other detention facilities, like one in New Jersey, which I know was recently reported on. So, of course, we want to keep the American people safe, and we want to remove these public safety threats from our streets, and we want to effectively detain them as best as we can.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier posted on X that the facility is a “one stop shop” to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda, claiming the location saves money on security since it’s surrounded by dangerous animals.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,” Uthmeier posted.
Among officials who will join Trump at the facility are Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.
In a statement released Monday, Noem said, “Alligator Alcatraz, and other facilities like it, will give us the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration. We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida. Make America safe again.”
DeSantis touted the facility last week as “as safe and secure as you can be.”
Environmental groups are suing to stop construction, alleging the government violated the Endangered Species Act by building on protected land.
Protesters gathered along the highway that cuts through the Everglades to demonstrate on Saturday. They included environmental activists and Native Americans advocating for their ancestral homelands. Others demonstrated against the treatment of migrants.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday embarked on a four-day tour of the Middle East, stopping in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a trip underscoring the deepening economic ties between the United States and the Gulf kingdoms.
Traveling to a region facing ongoing diplomatic, political and security challenges — including Iran’s nuclear program, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and war between Israel and Hamas, and the fate of Syria following a brutal 14-year civil war — Trump is expected to focus on business development and trade agreements on his trip, following commitments from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States and on joint investments over the next several years.
On Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s trip will “focus on strengthening ties” between the U.S. and the Gulf nations.
“President Trump will return to reemphasize his continued vision for a proud, prosperous and successful Middle East where the United States and Middle Eastern nations are in cooperative relationship and where extremism is defeated in place of commerce and cultural exchanges,” she said.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged to invest $600 billion in the United States over four years after Trump’s November victory, and the United Arab Emirates have also committed to a $1.4 trillion U.S. investment package over the next decade. Business and technology leaders will be convening in Riyadh around Trump’s trip for a Saudi-U.S. investment forum.
ABC News has also reported that the Trump administration is preparing to accept a luxury Boeing jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family for use as a presidential aircraft before being transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation after his term ends.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to ABC News’ reporting, saying in a statement that “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.”
The president’s family has also traveled to the region and has expanded its business interests in the Middle East: The Trump Organization has partnered with developers on new projects in Saudi Arabia, Doha and the United Arab Emirates, and is involved in a cryptocurrency venture connected to a fund with ties to the Emirati government.
Leavitt on Friday dismissed questions about the president’s family’s business dealings in the region ahead of his trip and said Trump “has actually lost money for being president of the United States.”
“The president acts with only the interests of the American public in mind, putting our country first and doing what’s best for our country — full stop,” she said.
“It’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit. He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service,” she later added.
Trump also began his first term in office with a visit to Saudi Arabia, in a break with his predecessors who had visited traditional U.S. allies and major trade partners on their first official foreign trips.
That trip to Saudi Arabia — which also included stops in Israel and later in Europe — focused on encouraging local partners to redouble efforts to fight “extremism” and terrorist groups, and work to marginalize Iran.
Since then, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have improved relations with Iran, and are now supportive of the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts to address Iran’s nuclear program.
“Both the Saudis and the Emiratis have decided that their priority is economic investment and getting away from energy, and that war with Iran is like a big danger to all of that. So they’ve completely shifted on Iran,” Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East specialist who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, told ABC News.
The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza also looms over Trump’s trip, given Israel’s plans to expand military operations in Gaza.
In Riyadh, Trump is expected to join a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting before he travels to Qatar.
While the president has aimed to ink a regional diplomatic agreement expanding on the Abraham Accords of his first term, the war in Gaza has effectively frozen efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, experts told ABC News.
“From the Saudi perspective, it makes it harder” to improve diplomatic relations with Israel, Zineb Riboua, a fellow with Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. “Because of what has happened and what is currently happening [in Gaza], they are struggling.”
Trump could hear from Arab leaders about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, given the U.S.’s ongoing military support for Israel, and Israeli plans to expand its campaign in Gaza to root out Hamas.
In February, Trump proposed that the U.S. “take over” Gaza and help rebuild it, a plan that was rejected by Arab leaders, who put forward their own counterproposal that the U.S. and Israel have opposed.
There have also been disputes between the U.S., Israel and Arab nations over how to administer humanitarian aid blockaded by Israel to Palestinians in Gaza.
Though the trip is Trump’s first planned foreign trip, he traveled to Rome and the Vatican in April to attend the funeral of Pope Francis.
On the sidelines of that trip, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the two countries worked to cement a minerals deal.
Saudi Arabia has hosted bilateral peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, underscoring the kingdom’s growing political influence, in addition to its economic and commercial importance in the region.
Trump “sees the Gulf as they see themselves, as a real fulcrum of global power,” Jon Alterman, the Middle East Program Chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News.
“A lot of people in the world think the Gulf is an outlier. A bunch of small, wealthy states that rely on the United States for security, protection. The Gulf sees itself differently, and the president is suggesting he sees the Gulf differently,” Alterman said.
Trump could receive a lavish welcome from the Gulf monarchs in the region, similar to the royal treatment he received when he visited Saudi Arabia in 2017.
The Saudis rolled out the red carpet for his arrival, greeting him at the airport with a military jet flyover and later awarding him a gold medal — the nation’s top civilian honor — and treating him to a traditional sword dance.
Trump’s trip also comes on the heels of Hamas announcing that they will be releasing Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, a dual US citizen, which will be part of steps taken to achieve a ceasefire. Hamas said that they have been in contact with American officials over the last few days over the efforts to try and achieve a ceasefire deal.
President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, Sunday evening, confirming that Alexander will be released from Hamas. Trump did not specify when Alexander was expected to be released, but said, “This is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said he was blocked Thursday from entering the El Salvador prison that is holding the Maryland resident whom the courts say was erroneously deported from the United States last month.
The Maryland senator, who flew to the country on Wednesday, shared a video on social media showing guards stopping him and others from entering CECOT, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held.
The Supreme Court and a Maryland federal judge ordered that the U.S. government “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. after the Department of Justice said in court filings that the 29-year-old father was wrongfully deported because of an “administrative error.” The Trump administration has alleged it cannot bring him back and claimed outside of court that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.
Van Hollen was joined by Chris Newman, who he said is the attorney for Abrego Garcia’s wife and mother, and said they are trying to check on the deported man’s condition.
The video also showed Van Hollen and Newman speaking to prison guards, who were visibly shaking their heads “no.”
“These soldiers were ordered to prevent us from going any farther from this spot,” Van Hollen said. “I understand we’re about three kilometers now from CECOT, and as you can see, they’re letting other cars go by, but they stopped us because they’re under orders not to allow us to proceed to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”
Over the last couple of weeks, Republican members of Congress have gained access to the prison and posted pictures on their social media pages from inside the complex.
Van Hollen later told reporters that he made his request to visit the prison to the U.S. Embassy, which then passed the request to El Salvador’s government.
The senator said he also asked El Salvador’s vice president on Wednesday to visit the facility.
“I emphasized my goal was to check on his health and well-being,” he said.
The senator also said the prisoner has had no contact with anyone outside of CECOT, which he said is a violation of international law.
“El Salvador is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. El Salvador has signed and ratified that covenant, and that covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,'” Van Allen told reporters.
The White House slammed Van Hollen for making the trip and advocating for Abrego Garcia on Wednesday. The administration and the DOJ have claimed with little evidence, that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.
The Justice Department has not charged Abrego Garcia with any gang-related crimes and his alleged MS-13 membership has been disputed in court.
A federal judge and the Supreme Court ordered the government to take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S., and on Wednesday, the DOJ filed a notice that it is appealing.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request on Thursday.
President Donald Trump weighed in on the situation on Thursday and claimed he isn’t involved.
“I was elected to get rid of those criminals, to get them out of our count,ry or to put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I don’t see how judges can take that authority away from a president,” he told reporters.
