April 25, 2025
Overnight on Saturday, the Supreme Court issued a rare midnight order temporarily halting further deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) from a detention center in north Texas. This order followed an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asserting that immigration officials appeared to be moving to restart deportations under the AEA. Before the order was released, buses of Venezuelan migrants that had been heading to an airport in North Texas turned around.
On Wednesday evening, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis paused for 7 days her order requiring the Trump administration to provide information on its efforts so far to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man from El Salvador mistakenly deported by the administration to a Salvadoran prison, after the Justice Department asked for a stay. On Tuesday, Judge Xinis had ordered the Trump administration to more fully answer and respond to discovery requests from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, giving them a deadline of 6pm Wednesday to respond. Judge Xinis noted in her ruling that the administration has been obtuse and non-compliant in their response to the orders thus far. The judge did not give a reason for the pause, but noted that Abrego Garcia’s attorneys agreed to it.
A federal appeals court affirmed a judge's ruling that prevented the Trump administration from canceling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. The appeals court backed a U.S. district judge’s decision that rejected the administration’s request to lift his stay of the order to revoke TPS for Venezuelans issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
The State Dept. is scaling back its annual reports on international human rights. It will remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process. In a memo, employees were directed to "streamline" the reports by stripping them down to only that which is legally required. The changes aim to align the reports with current U.S. policy and "recently issued Executive Orders."
