Top judge resumes contempt inquiry into Trump El Salvador deportations

James Boasberg demands sworn testimony to determine whether US officials defied March court order

A federal judge on Wednesday said he was resuming his long-stalled court proceeding to determine whether Trump administration officials willfully violated a court order by deporting hundreds of men to El Salvador in March.

US district judge James Boasberg said he would demand sworn testimony from administration officials to determine whether they defied his March court order to turn around aircraft that were removing the men from US territory.

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Tenured professor sues University of Kentucky for banning him from law school over comments on Israel

Exclusive: Ramsi Woodcock, who calls for an ‘end’ to Israel and military intervention against it, says the university violated his first amendment rights

A tenured law professor sued the University of Kentucky on Thursday after he was banned from teaching and from the law school for comments he made about Israel, including characterizations of the state as a “colonization project” and calls for the world to wage war against it.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, Ramsi Woodcock, an antitrust law scholar, argued that the public university violated his first amendment and due process rights when it abruptly placed him under investigation in July, just days after he was promoted to full professor, over allegations that he violated university policy – including anti-discrimination rules that incorporate a widely disputed definition of antisemitism.

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US man accused of faking own death after rape conviction gets at least five years in prison

Nicholas Rossi, who fled US, receives first of two sentences after being convicted of raping two women in Utah in 2008

A judge has sentenced a Rhode Island man who appeared to fake his death and flee the United States to avoid arrest of at least five years in prison for rape.

The sentence handed down Monday for Nicholas Rossi, 38, was the first of two he faces after being convicted separately in August and September of raping two women in northern Utah in 2008. He is scheduled to be sentenced in November for the second conviction.

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Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Exclusive: Miller’s homeland security council has played a key part in coordinating operations, sources say

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, has played a leading role in directing US strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug boats, according to three people familiar with the situation. At times, his role has superseded that of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser.

The strikes on the Venezuelan boats allegedly carrying narcotics, which the administration has claimed were necessary because interdiction did not work, have been orchestrated through the homeland security council (HSC), which Miller leads as the homeland security adviser.

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Judge blocks ending of legal protections for 1m Venezuelans and Haitians in US

Homeland security had tried to end temporary protected status granted by the Biden administration

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means that 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire on 10 September have status to stay and work in the United States.

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Ice deported boy with cancer and two other US citizen children to Honduras, suit alleges

Suit filed in Louisiana says agency didn’t give parents choice as to whether children should be deported with them

A lawsuit filed in Louisiana on behalf of two mothers and their four minor children, including one with cancer, claims the two families were unlawfully denied due process and deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to Honduras in April 2025.

The lawsuit, which names the attorney general, Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and various Ice officials as defendants, alleges Ice violated its own policies, and multiple federal laws, when officers secretly detained the families, denied access to counsel and swiftly deported them to Honduras, ignoring legal filings.

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French president and wife sue rightwing US commentator Candace Owens for defamation

Owens has claimed that France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, is a man, and that French president is controlled by CIA

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte Macron, are suing the rightwing commentator Candace Owens for defamation.

In a suit filed on Wednesday in Delaware against Owens and her businesses, the Macrons say Owens has engaged in ongoing defamatory attacks against them in order to elevate her media platform, gain more audience and make money.

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US judge clears path for eight immigrants to be deported to South Sudan

Justice department says the men – including nationals from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar – will be flown to South Sudan

Eight migrants lost their last-ditch effort to halt their deportation to South Sudan by the Trump administration on Friday, clearing the way for their imminent transfer after a judge in Massachusetts denied their request.

Lawyers for the justice department said the men were scheduled to be flown to South Sudan on Friday at 7pm Eastern Time after two courts considered the request on an emergency basis on 4 July, when courts were otherwise closed for the Independence Day holiday.

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Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

New court documents allege physical and psychological torture at Cecot in one of first looks at conditions in prison

Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.

While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.

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Man wrongfully deported to El Salvador must be returned to US, court rules

White House must return Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported less than 30 minutes after his removal was barred

An appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to return a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the US and to explain how it is complying in a ruling apparently designed to break a pattern of apparent government defiance of judicial orders.

The US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York also required the government to provide a declaration of the current whereabouts and custodial status of Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported on 7 May less than half an hour after the court had expressly barred his removal.

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Group stranded with Ice in Djibouti shipping container after removal from US

Deportees and officers are ‘ill’ and face risks after flight to South Sudan was stopped by US court in late May

A group of men removed from the US to Djibouti, in east Africa, are stranded in a converted shipping container together with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sent to supervise them after a deportation flight to South Sudan was stopped by an American court.

The eight deportees and 13 Ice staff have begun to “feel ill”, the US government said.

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Supreme court blocks Trump bid to resume deportations under 1798 law

Administration’s appeal to quickly deport Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act rejected with two dissenting

The supreme court has rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove a temporary block on deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law.

Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

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Judge dismisses trespassing charges against people crossing US-Mexico border

New Mexico judge rules immigrants did not know they were entering US military zone, marking setback for Trump

A federal judge in New Mexico on Thursday dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of immigrants caught in a new military zone on the US-Mexico border, marking a setback for Trump administration efforts to raise penalties for unlawful crossings into the US.

Chief US magistrate judge Gregory Wormuth began filing the dismissals late on Wednesday, ruling that immigrants did not know they were entering the military zone in New Mexico and therefore could not be charged, according to court documents and a defense attorney.

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Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege in Kilmar Ábrego García case

Lawyers say they’re ‘still in dark’ about government’s efforts to free the man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador

The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Ábrego García’s case. Xinis also scheduled a 16 May hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, to address the matter.

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Court orders detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Vermont

Lawyers say the Turkish national, who has been held in a Louisiana Ice center for two weeks, was illegally detained

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case of Rümeysa Öztürk after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Identity of second man illegally deported to El Salvador prison revealed

Daniel Lozano-Camargo, 20, was deported in March in violation of a legal settlement over his asylum application

The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.

Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.

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Trump officials ask supreme court to help strip legal status from Venezuelans

Justice department calls on court to hold judge’s order against ending temporary protected status for 300,000

The Trump administration asked the US supreme court on Thursday to intervene and assist in its attempt to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants in the US, a move that would clear the way for their deportation.

The justice department asked the supreme court justices to put on hold a federal judge’s order from March that halted the decision of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to terminate the temporary legal status that previously was granted to some Venezuelans.

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US judge finds probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt over alien act deportations

Judge also warned he could name independent prosecutor if White House stonewalled contempt proceedings

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

In a scathing 46-page opinion, James Boasberg, the chief US district judge for Washington, wrote that senior Trump officials could either return the people who were supposed to have been protected by his injunction, or face contempt proceedings.

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The Trump administration trapped a wrongly deported man in a catch-22

The US says it can’t aid in his return as he’s in El Salvador; El Salvador says to help would be like ‘smuggling’ him back

It is difficult to find a term more fitting for the fate of the Maryland father Kilmar Abrego García than Kafkaesque.

Abrego García is one of hundreds of foreign-born men deported under the Trump administration to the Cecot mega-prison in El Salvador as part of a macabre partnership with the self-declared “world’s coolest dictator”, Nayib Bukele.

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DoJ lawyer put on leave after not backing erroneous deportation of Maryland man

Erez Reuveni no longer on Kilmar Abrego Garcia case after not ‘vigorously’ defending Trump administration

A federal justice department attorney has been placed on leave by the Trump administration for purportedly failing to defend the administration vigorously enough after it says it erroneously deported a Maryland man to El Salvador, which a US judge called a “wholly lawless” detention.

The action against justice department lawyer Erez Reuveni came after US district judge Paula Xinis had ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit, be returned to Maryland despite the Trump administration’s position that it cannot return him from a sovereign nation.

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