Supreme court backs Trump on aggressive immigration raids
The supreme court has again backed Donald Trump’s hardline approach toward immigration today, allowing federal agents to proceed with raids in southern California targeting people for deportation based on their race or language.
The court granted a justice department request to put on hold a federal judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” they are in the country illegally, by relying on race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent, among other factors.
The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision.
Los Angeles-based US district judge Maame Frimpong had issued the order on 11 July, finding that the Trump administration’s actions probably violated the constitution’s fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The order applied to her court’s jurisdiction covering much of southern California.
The lawsuit alleged a pattern of “roving” patrols by masked and heavily armed agents conducting interrogations and detentions based on racial profiling that resemble “brazen, midday kidnappings”.
One plaintiff, Jason Gavidia, claimed that agents roughed him up after disbelieving his statements to them that he is a US citizen, demanding to know the name of the hospital where he was born.
“Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from,” the lawsuit stated.
Frimpong issued the temporary restraining order halting agents from using race or ethnicity, language, presence at a particular location such as a car wash or tow yard, or type of work, to carry out stops or arrests, as none of those factors alone can establish “reasonable suspicion” of illegality.
The San Francisco-based 9th US circuit court of appeals on 1 August denied the administration’s request to lift Frimpong’s order.
In a written filing, the DoJ defended targeting people using a “reasonably broad profile” in a region where, according to the administration, about 10% of residents are in the country illegally.
The administration’s request marked its latest trip to the supreme court seeking to proceed with policies that lower courts have impeded after casting doubt on their legality. The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has backed Trump in most of these cases.
Key events
Marina Dunbar
Donald Trump launched a vitriolic attack against Tom Hanks for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after one of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed without much explanation by West Point last week.
On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni association of the US Military Academy (or West Point) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has played numerous military characters and also has a long history of advocating for veterans.
Trump wrote: “Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move! We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!”
Hanks had been scheduled to receive the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award later this month for his “service and accomplishments in the national interest”.
Sam Levine
Law enforcement officials on Sunday dismantled a peace vigil that had stood in front of the White House for more than four decades, an action taken on orders issued by Donald Trump two days earlier.
The vigil targeted by the president was started in 1981 by William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament and an end to global conflicts, and it is believed to be the longest continuous anti-war protest in the United States. For decades, volunteers would man the site, just in front of the White House gates in Lafayette Square, to prevent it from being taken down.
A correspondent for the conservative network Real America’s Voice, Brian Glenn, asked Trump about the vigil on Friday. “Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms – it’s kind of morphed into an anti-America sometimes, anti-Trump at many times,” he said. Trump replied that he didn’t know about the tent and then turned to staff to say: “Take it down, right now.”
Will Roosien, a 24-year-old who had been volunteering at the vigil on Sunday, told the Washington Post that officers arrived at 6.30am on Sunday and told him he had 30 minutes to remove a tarp under which he had been sheltering from the rain. He refused and told the Post he was detained while the officers dismantled the tent.
“This is a disgrace, and you should all feel ashamed,” Roosien told the officers, according to video obtained by the Post. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for 44 years, someone has sat here, advocating for people around the world who we don’t know. Advocating for human rights. Advocating for peace.”
Concurring with the decision, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” but it can be a “‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors”.
He added: “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go.”
Per my last post, the supreme court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision, directing pointed criticism at its conservative majority.
The administration “has all but declared that all Latinos, US citizens or not, who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction”, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion.
“Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent,” Sotomayor added.
Supreme court backs Trump on aggressive immigration raids
The supreme court has again backed Donald Trump’s hardline approach toward immigration today, allowing federal agents to proceed with raids in southern California targeting people for deportation based on their race or language.
The court granted a justice department request to put on hold a federal judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” they are in the country illegally, by relying on race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent, among other factors.
The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision.
Los Angeles-based US district judge Maame Frimpong had issued the order on 11 July, finding that the Trump administration’s actions probably violated the constitution’s fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The order applied to her court’s jurisdiction covering much of southern California.
The lawsuit alleged a pattern of “roving” patrols by masked and heavily armed agents conducting interrogations and detentions based on racial profiling that resemble “brazen, midday kidnappings”.
One plaintiff, Jason Gavidia, claimed that agents roughed him up after disbelieving his statements to them that he is a US citizen, demanding to know the name of the hospital where he was born.
“Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from,” the lawsuit stated.
Frimpong issued the temporary restraining order halting agents from using race or ethnicity, language, presence at a particular location such as a car wash or tow yard, or type of work, to carry out stops or arrests, as none of those factors alone can establish “reasonable suspicion” of illegality.
The San Francisco-based 9th US circuit court of appeals on 1 August denied the administration’s request to lift Frimpong’s order.
In a written filing, the DoJ defended targeting people using a “reasonably broad profile” in a region where, according to the administration, about 10% of residents are in the country illegally.
The administration’s request marked its latest trip to the supreme court seeking to proceed with policies that lower courts have impeded after casting doubt on their legality. The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has backed Trump in most of these cases.
As the president praised the lack of crime in DC while delivering remarks at the Museum of the Bible today, he repeated his desire to send federal law enforcement and national guard troops to “straighten” Chicago out.
“You try and reason with people, like in Chicago, with the governor there, you try and reason with them, and it’s like you’re talking to a wall,” Trump said. It’s part of his frequent refrain that Illinois governor JB Pritzker is reckless for not “asking” for the president’s help. Earlier on Truth Social, Trump insisted that he wants to “help the people of Chicago, not hurt them”.
In his post he continued to deride Chicago’s Democratic leaders, including mayor Brandon Johnson:
“The City and State have not been able to do the job. People of Illinois should band together and DEMAND PROTECTION. IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE!!! ACT NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!
Supreme court upholds Trump decision to fire Federal Trade Commission member
The supreme court has allowed Donald Trump to fire a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It’s the latest decision in a spate of high-profile firings of Senate-confirmed officials in recent months.
Chief justice John Roberts issued the ruling, which blocks a lower court’s ruling for the president to reinstate Rebecca Slaughter while the case plays out. A federal district court judge said last week that the administration had violated a federal law which prevents FTC members from removal without cause.
Trump moved to fire both Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya from the FTC earlier this year. Both are the only Democratic appointees of the five-member board.
Trump is now touting that DC is a “safe zone”, since the surge of federal law enforcement and takeover of the DC police. He adds that the “beautification” project for the DC will continue.
He goes on to say that DC mayor Muriel Bowser has been compliant with the administration’s efforts. “It wasn’t her ideology, but now maybe it is,” Trump says.
Trump previews order to ‘protect’ right to prayer in public schools
Trump is now speaking at the Museum of the Bible in DC. He just announced that the Department of Education will be issuing “new guidance protecting the right to prayer in our public schools.”
A short while ago the president brought up a 12-year-old California student who addressed the Religious Liberty Commission. He told a story about how he was “forced” to read My Shadow is Pink – a story book that explores how a young boy explores different parts of his identity that aren’t considered traditionally masculine.
“I knew this was not right, but I was afraid of getting in trouble. After my family spoke up, school treated us badly, and kids started bullying me and my brother because of our faith, and the school did nothing to stop it. It hurt a lot, but I kept trusting God,” she student said today, standing next to Trump.
The president went on to undermine trans rights. “Can you imagine men playing in women’s sports?” Trump said. “Democrats don’t want to give it up.”
Appeals court upholds defamation lawsuit, ordering Trump to pay more than $80m
A federal appeals court in New York has upheld the defamation lawsuit filed by writer E Jean Carroll, and the $83.3m award, after Trump denied her claim that he raped her.
The panel of judges also rejected the administration’s argument that the president is protected by the supreme court’s immunity ruling last year.
The same appeals court awarded Carroll $5m in 2023, in a separate case that found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse.
Trump administration asks supreme court to allow foreign aid clawback to continue
The Trump administration filed an emergency request to the supreme court on Monday to block a lower court’s ruling, which stopped the administration from withholding billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid.
An appeals court ordered the administration to spend the money, upholding the federal judge’s ruling last week, which ultimately prompted the request to the supreme court.
Last month, Trump announced that he did not intend to spend almost $5bn in foreign aid, using a rare tool known as the “pocket rescission”. This involves submitting a request to congress so close to the end of the fiscal year, that it effectively runs out the clock for the 45 days needed for lawmakers to review the request.
Marina Dunbar
For many Americans, the new Covid vaccine guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), spearheaded by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his highly controversial Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, have added another layer of stress to an increasingly inaccessible healthcare system.
The agency authorized Covid vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections, but younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them particularly vulnerable.
For Madison Heckle, a 33-year-old attorney in the final stretch of wedding planning, the stakes feel personal. She has struggled with frequent illness ever since first contracting Covid in 2021.
“Ever since then, I just catch everything,” she said. Though she expressed her frustrations with a weakened immune system, she had her doubts that she would qualify for vaccine coverage under the new guidelines.
Her immediate worry is simple: not being bedridden on the day she says “I do”. “Weddings are expensive, and I don’t want to be sick that day if I can prevent it, and so I just want to get the vaccine,” she said. “I’ve gotten my booster every year.”
Yet the new rules have complicated what was once routine. Instead of stopping by CVS, as she has in past years, Heckle found herself on the phone with her insurer, navigating coverage questions and learning she’d need to go to a different pharmacy.
“I just am really hoping that I don’t have to risk being sick on my wedding day,” she said.
Read more about the new guidelines are causing fear for those with that their ageing or immunocompromised loved ones.
The president has also spent a fair amount of time on Truth Social today, most recently touting the impact of the surge of federal law enforcement in DC, and the takeover of the Metropolitan police department (MPD).
“Washington, D.C. IS A SAFE ZONE IN JUST A MATTER OF WEEKS. Thank you, President Trump. Who’s Next???,” Trump said, possibly alluding to his frequent threats to send federal agents and national guard troops to Chicago.
Meanwhile, attorney general Pam Bondi said today that since more federal law enforcement began assisting MPD, there have been more than 2,100 arrests in the capital in the last month, and 214 illegal firearms seized.
Trump says US is ready for second phase of Russian sanctions
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, the president said that he was ready for the second phase of sanctions against Russia. He didn’t elaborate on when those sanctions would take effect, or how severe they would be.
He later said that “no one has been tougher on President Putin” but went on to say that he’s not “thrilled” with the Moscow leader.
“Look, we’re going to get it done. The Russia, Ukraine situation. We’re going to get it done,” Trump added.
