Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end protections for Venezuelan migrants
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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans who were protected from deportation and allowed to work in the United States.
The court approved the administration’s request to lift a lower court’s order that barred it from ending the protections.
In their application to the high court, lawyers representing the government had said the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California undermined “the Executive Branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs,” when it halted the administration from ending protections and work permits in April 2025 as opposed to the original date in October 2026.
Ahilan Arulanantham, who is representing TPS holders in the case, said he believes this to be “the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history.”
“This is the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history. That the Supreme Court authorized this action in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking,” Arulanantham said. “The humanitarian and economic impact of the Court’s decision will be felt immediately, and will reverberate for generations.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Federal judges in D.C. on Friday partially blocked two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump targeting the Jenner and Block and WilmerHale law firms — temporarily halting Trump’s attempts to punish prominent law firms associated with his political foes.
In a lawsuit brought by Jenner and Block, D.C. District Judge John Bates described Trump’s executive order — which aims to strip the firms’ attorneys of any security clearances they may hold and severely restrict any business they may have before the federal government — as “troubling” and “disturbing.” He said it targets the firm’s and its employees’ First Amendment rights and rights to due process.
Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, temporarily enjoined the administration from enforcing aspects of the order that seek to restrict government officials from engaging with officials from Jenner and Block, after he said the government failed to provide any substantive answers as to how employees from the firm threaten national security.
The judge said that attorneys representing Jenner and Block showed that they were likely being targeted on the basis of their protected free speech rights, and that they would suffer irreparable economic harm if it were fully implemented.
Later Friday, Judge Richard Leon also granted a temporary restraining order partially enjoining another executive order signed by Trump targeting the law firm WilmerHale.
Leon, also an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said several parts of Trump’s order clearly show “retaliatory actions based on perceived viewpoint” of employees of WilmerHale.
“There is no doubt this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy, or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm,” Leon said in his written order, following a hearing late Friday.
Leon is now the third federal judge to largely accept arguments from law firms targeted by Trump that his orders are likely unconstitutional — and that if implemented, Leon said, WilmerHale “faces crippling losses and its very survival is at stake.”
Both law firms filed suit in D.C. federal court on Friday to block the executive orders — the same day another major law firm struck a $100 million deal to preemptively avoid a similar Trump executive order.
The lawsuits accuse Trump of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms who have represented plaintiffs currently suing the administration, or who have represented or at one point employed those he dislikes.
The Trump executive order threatened their futures as well as “the legal system itself,” Jenner and Block said in its lawsuit.
“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the Jenner and Block suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”
The two firms are the latest firms seeking to counter what has been a rapid onslaught by the White House seeking to target individual firms that have hired or otherwise represented Trump’s political enemies.
Meanwhile, Trump said on Friday that the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom struck a deal to avoid one of his executive orders by providing $100 million in pro bono work during the Trump administration — among other guarantees.
The move has sent shockwaves through the legal community. The White House is prepared to target more big law firms, sources tell ABC News, and there are ongoing discussions among top advisers on strategy associated with possibly entering into negotiations with more of them.
Legal scholars have said there is little legal precedent for Trump’s war on Big Law, which has created a chilling effect across the legal community, and most will certainly have a chilling effect on his opponents who will need legal representation against him.
The firms’ legal actions come on the heels of successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie, which earlier this month secured a court order blocking similar executive action signed by Trump.
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that the Secret Service caught the person who swiped her bag from a Washington restaurant on Easter Sunday while she was dining with her family.
“Thank you to @SecretService @ICE and our law enforcement partners for finding and arresting the criminal who stole my bag on Easter Sunday as I shared a meal with my family at a Washington DC restaurant,” Noem posted on X.
Authorities said a man wearing a mask took Noem’s bag, which contained $3,000, her DHS access card, passport, makeup bag, apartment key and other items.
Noem said in her post that the person arrested is “a career criminal who has been in our country illegally for years.”
“Unfortunately, so many families in this country have been made victims by crime, and that’s why President Trump is working every single day to make America safe and get these criminal aliens off of our streets,” she said.
Later Sunday, the Secret Service said it had made two arrests in the case — one in Washington and one in Miami.
The Secret Service said the defendant arrested in D.C., who it didn’t identify, is a serial offender and said the theft “had no protective nexus to Secretary Noem or her role as Secretary of Homeland Security.” It also said its investigation revealed alleged potential device and credit card fraud and would maintain jurisdiction over the case.
The person arrested in Miami is believed to be a co-conspirator with the first person in a pattern of thefts and robberies in D.C. and is believed to be the primary defendant in stealing Noem’s bag, the Secret Service said. The person is being held on an immigration detainer and their name will be released when charges are finalized, the Secret Service said.
In an interview on Thursday, Noem said she thought the theft was “professionally done.”
“It was kind of shocking, actually, because it was sitting right by my feet, actually felt my purse, he hooked it with his foot and dragged it a few steps away and dropped a coat over it and took it,” Noem said on “The Vince Show.”
Noem said she wasn’t sure if she was targeted because she was the DHS secretary. She said she felt something brush against her leg where the bag was at her feet, but thought it was one of her grandchildren.
“I think I was a busy grandma with four grandkids under the age of 4, and I was taking care of them and feeding them food and enjoying my family, yeah, but certainly had my purse even touching my feet,” she said.
A DHS official said the secretary had the cash with her because her family was in town and she was treating them to Easter festivities.
“Her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren — she was using the cash withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities, and Easter gifts,” the official said.
ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.
(AUSTIN, TX) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced in a proclamation Monday afternoon that the special election to fill the seat vacated following the death of Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, for the rest of his term will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4, concurrent with Election Day.
But Democrats are arguing he is trying to keep the seat open as long as possible because of Republicans’ slim majority in the House.
Republicans have 220 seats to Democrats’ 213, and the special election would most likely install a new Democrat in the seat, given the district’s Democratic lean, cutting back on the GOP majority.
In a statement, Abbott blamed Harris County, where the district is located, for election administration issues, saying that is why he had to schedule the election for November.
“Forcing Harris County to rush this special election on weeks’ notice would harm the interests of voters. The appropriate time to hold this election is November, which will give Harris County sufficient time to prepare for such an important election,” Abbott wrote.
Abbott gave that reasoning in a recent local interview as well, telling local station KXAN on Thursday that the county will “need to have adequate time to operate a fair and accurate election, not a crazy election like what they conducted in the past.”
State audits found that Harris County had issues with administering elections in 2021 and 2022, according to Votebeat. Those issues included not properly training election workers and not issuing enough ballot paper at various places. But the county has also been a target for unfounded theories or allegations about elections.
However, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth noted in a statement on Friday that the county has successfully run eight elections since election administration duties were given to the Harris County Clerk’s Office in September 2023 and said the county is prepared to run the special election.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said on Monday afternoon that an announcement is “forthcoming” on litigation over filling the seat.
“The Republicans are on the run on the economy … and they’re on the run legislatively, which is why Gov. Abbott is conspiring with House Republicans to rig the system and not call a special election,” Jeffries said at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol.
In a later statement on Monday after Abbott announced the date, Jeffries said House Democrats are still considering legal action. The Texas Democratic Party has also threatened to file a lawsuit.
A spokesperson for Abbott’s office, when asked on Monday by ABC News about the governor’s response to Democratic allegations about margins in the House and the allegation that Abbott is following President Donald Trump’s or Republicans’ direction, pointed to Abbott’s comments from the local news interview, without elaborating.
The spokesperson did not address how Abbott might respond to any litigation.
Abbott’s announcement means the congressional seat will be vacant for about eight months since Turner’s passing in March, if the new date holds.
Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist who works for various Texas Democratic clients, told ABC News on Monday that the seat vacancy comes “at a time when people absolutely need their congressional representation” as the Trump administration implements sweeping tariffs and cuts to the federal government.
From a legal standpoint, however, Texas state law appears to give the governor wide latitude to choose when to set special elections.
Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, told ABC News on Tuesday that the amount of time the seat will remain vacant in this case is much longer than previous occurrences in 2018 and 2021, when Abbott also called special elections to fill vacancies.
But Blank pointed out that Abbott, a former state attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, is likely sure he is on solid legal ground: “Gov. Abbott doesn’t seek out lawsuits against him. He was a sophisticated legal operator before he became a sophisticated politician and a sophisticated governor, and that really suffuses his politics and his approach.”
Chad Wilbanks, a Republican strategist and former Texas GOP executive director, told ABC News on Friday, “The governor is the sole authority of calling the special election for when he wants.”
“Democrats at the state and federal level support boys playing in girls sports, they support open borders and drags shows in public libraries,” he added, referring to LGBT and immigration issues. “There is no urgency because of their policies that Texans oppose.”
