Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Deportation of "Alien Enemies"

Early Saturday morning, the Supreme Court ordered Donald Trump to temporarily stop sending Venezuelan nationals detained in Texas to the CECOT prison in El Salvador. The vote was 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting. Trump claims that he has the authority to do so under an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, that gives the president emergency powers in the event the country is at war (which it is not) or has been invaded (which it has not under any normal definition of "invaded").

This 1-paragraph ruling was a follow-up of a unanimous April 7 ruling that detainees were entitled to be given reasonable notice of their imminent deportation so they could contest it in court. The Saturday ruling indicates that the Court believes the administration did not obey either the spirit or letter of the April 7 order when it gave the detainees a 1-page notice of their upcoming deportation in English (a language most of them do not speak) that does not describe their right to due process and how to achieve it. It also indicates that the Court is not ruling whether the detainees are good people or bad people, but simply that everyone in the U.S. is entitled to due process. If the government has evidence that the detainees are in the country illegally and should be deported under the Alien Enemies Act, it has to make that case in court and convince an immigration judge. It can't just round them up and ship them out without due process.

What happens next is up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Earlier, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered contempt proceedings against the administration for disobeying his order to give him information about earlier deportations. His ruling was appealed to the Fifth Circuit, so we are now waiting for its decision. Once it has decided, the Supreme Court may (or may not) continue with the case.

There are a lot of moving parts here, with multiple cases going on at the same time. What is clear is that Trump is very determined to at least try to live up to his campaign promise to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Many people thought he would deport a few hundred, get a photo op with them on the way out, and declare victory. You could argue that he's done the first part of that, inasmuch as he's focusing on high-profile deportations, rather than mass deportations. However, he has not declared victory, and he's still pressing forward. So, he might be more serious about running up his totals.

It is our guess that Trump will do everything he can to avoid having Kilmar Abrego Garcia come home even though he was deported by mistake. The real problem is that if he comes back, he will be the main news story for a week and will tell every reporter within a mile what a hell hole the CECOT prison is. This could turn public opinion against deporting people there. Since Trump doesn't have any place else to send them, he will try to avoid having Garcia come back unless the Supreme Court gives him a 9-0 point-blank order to do so, and maybe not even then.

One point that hasn't been addressed much (or at all) is where the deportees are being sent. Normally, deportees are driven or flown to their home country and released there. Now they are being sent to a prison in a third-country and given a life sentence. That is not how deportations are supposed to work, especially not for people who have not been convicted in court of any crime.

In rural Louisiana, 7,000 immigrants are awaiting deportation. The acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, said he wants "to get better at treating this like a business, like Amazon, trying to get your product delivered in 24 hours." Only here the "product" is an immigrant and the delivery location is a prison in El Salvador that didn't actually order the "product" online and is not in any hurry to receive it. Lyons wants to build a pipeline and sees it primarily as a logistical problem to be solved, not unlike the folks who built the detention centers for Japanese-Americans in California in 1942 or the folks who built the Nazi concentration camps in the 1940s. One cannot help but think of Hannah Arendt's observations about the banality of evil.

Louisiana has become #2 in holding detainees (after Texas), even though it has few immigrants and has no border with Mexico. It has nine detention centers, mostly in the northwestern part of the state, hours from cities and lawyers. Conditions there are said to be deplorable. It was chosen somewhat haphazardly. It just happened to have quite a bit of excess prison capacity that could be utilized quickly. Also, it is in the conservative Fifth Circuit, so its appeals court gets cases bubbling up from below.

ICE wants to scale up from its current 41,000 beds to 100,000 beds. The money isn't there, but ICE is awarding construction contracts anyway. No doubt Trump's cronies can make a pretty penny in this business. Two of the contractors, The Geo Group and Deployed Resources LLC, have seen their stock go up 94% since Jan. 20. This story is far from over and may soon become a constitutional crisis if the Supreme Court gives an unambiguous order and Trump just ignores it.

To Trump's credit (or maybe Stephen Miller's or Tom Homan's), if the administration wants a constitutional crisis, this is as good a case as any. Trump will make the argument that the Venezuelans are Bad People and should be deported. End of story. Many people will agree with that. But that is not the issue at all. The issue is whether the administration can do that without holding any hearing and getting an immigration judge to rule that the immigrants may be deported. Absent that, the administration will be able to round up anyone, even people who have not broken any law, and send them off to a foreign prison for life, just because it wants to. That said, many people aren't going to be interested in the "process" argument. They are going to agree with Trump that Bad People should be deported, the law be damned. This is why it is potentially a good issue for Trump. Birthright citizenship is a tougher issue since most people support it. (V)

Trump Fires His Third IRS Commissioner in under 100 Days

They're dropping like flies. In theory, the commissioner of internal revenue is not a political position. He or she is supposed to enforce the tax laws Congress has passed and collect the revenue associated with them. In practice, with finite resources, they have to make political decisions, like "Do we focus on catching billionaires who cheat on their taxes or on small business owners who cheat on their taxes?" Additionally, presidents are sometimes tempted to use the IRS to punish their political enemies, and it takes a strong commissioner to resist. There is also the usual bureaucratic infighting. As a consequence of all of this, Donald Trump just fired his third IRS commissioner, 2 days after he hired him.

Joe Biden's commissioner, Danny Werfel, had a masters in public policy, a law degree, and 20 years of government experience at the OMB and DoJ, working for presidents of both parties. This is how it is supposed to be. He resigned on Jan. 20, 2025. Trump needed someone fast, so he picked Doug O'Donnell, who is a CPA and who was commissioner for 4 months before Werfel got the job. He was a good pick as acting commissioner except that he is old and retired on Feb. 25, 2025.

Then Trump picked Melanie Krause, a registered nurse (with a Ph.D. in nursing) who had worked as inspector general at the VA and later was COO of the IRS as acting commissioner. Despite her unusual background, she was a quick study and before long was supervising 100,000 people in 500 offices. In April, Secretary of DHS Kristi Noem and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent signed an agreement in which the IRS would turn over confidential data about immigrants to ICE. Krause knew this was illegal and resigned on April 8 rather than turn over the data.

On April 16, Trump appointed Gary Shapley Jr. as acting commissioner. Shapley has been an IRS agent since 2009. His major achievement in life was pursuing Hunter Biden and complaining that the DoJ wasn't moving fast enough in prosecuting him. Trump picked Shapley as acting commissioner on the recommendation of Elon Musk, possibly because Shapley has no management experience and probably wouldn't be very good at catching billionaire tax cheaters with high-priced lawyers. However, Trump neglected to mention this appointment to Bessent. Bessent was not amused at being presented with a big turkey in April and told Trump that Shapley had to go. On April 18, Trump listened to Bessent and fired Shapley and appointed Michael Faulkender, the current deputy secretary of the treasury, as acting commissioner. His job is going to be carrying out the 40% personnel reduction at IRS that Musk wants to push through. After all, collecting taxes is waste and abuse. This is a small sign, but Trump vetoed Musk here and sided with one of the few semi-competent cabinet officers.

You might be wondering: Why all these acting commissioners? The reason is that Trump has nominated former Missouri representative Billy Long as commissioner. Before being elected to the House in 2010, Long was an auctioneer and radio host. As a congressman, he co-sponsored a bill to abolish the income tax (and the IRS) and replace it with a 23% national sales tax. In 2022, he ran for the Senate and lost the primary to now-Sen. Eric Schmidt (R-MO). In 2023 he became a salesman for a somewhat shady consulting company that advises clients to apply for certain iffy tax credits and then takes a cut of the savings. The IRS warned people about this scam. After 6 months, Long quit and became a realtor. Werfel he is not.

Nevertheless, his Senate confirmation hearing hasn't happened yet, probably because Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) knows how unqualified Long is and is worried that, at the very least, the Democrats will make that clear to the country during the hearing. At the very worst, he might be worried that Democrats might campaign in 2026 on "Trump appointed a sleazy fool to run the IRS so Elon Musk won't have to pay any taxes." Of course, Trump could withdraw the nomination and go with Faulkender, who has a Ph.D. in Finance from Northwestern and was assistant secretary of the treasury during Trump v1.0. Maybe that is what Thune is hoping.

Before Trump v2.0 began, one thing many people predicted that has come true is that there would be chaos, just as in Trump v1.0. (V)

Trump Is Starting to Implement Schedule F

At the very end of his first term, Donald Trump signed an XO to implement his Schedule F project. This would reclassify up to 50,000 civil servants as political appointees. Civil servants are covered by the 1883 Pendleton Act and can't be fired except for malfeasance. By reclassifying 50,000 people as political appointees, Trump could stack the bureaucracy with his flunkies. Of course the next Democratic president could fire them all and put in his own people. But that would be reinstating the spoils system, which the Pendleton Act was meant to end.

One of the first things Joe Biden did after being inaugurated is cancel Trump's Schedule F XO. Now Trump is putting it back in place again. And because he is doing it so early in his term this time, it is very likely that within 4 years, he will have replaced 50,000 civil servants, unless the Supreme Court says he can't do that. Under the new rules, if the president says you are gone, then "Poof!" you are gone, with no need for pesky hearings or appeals.

Oh, and if a civil servant is fired, that person need not necessarily be replaced. The position could be kept open—that is, de facto eliminated. That could be useful if someone important somewhere decided to downsize the federal government. We could see some of that. But in many cases, the government would function less well and people would get poorer service. Some people might see that as a feature rather than a bug. (V)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Tariffs

In the original 1957 version of the Dr. Seuss book, the Grinch stole a town's Christmas presents, but later repented and gave them back. In this year's version, Donald J. Grinch may not give them back.

The problem is that 75% of all the toys sold in the U.S. are made in China, and are about to go up in price by 145%. Supply chains are long and complicated, and large retailers have to start making decisions about what to buy for Christmas shopping (which starts in November) now. The tariff is paid when the products actually arrive and that won't be for a few months.

That said, if a toy that used to sell for $20 will now have to be sold for $49 to cover the 145% tariff, the store has to place an order based on its best guess on how many can be sold at that price. To avoid getting stuck with merchandise it can't sell at the price it has to charge to cover the tariff, the store will probably order fewer items. This could mean that popular items sell out by Dec. 1, even if the tariffs go down, unless that happens fairly quickly. If toy companies in China produce fewer items due to smaller orders, at a certain point we will have passed the point of no return. The point of no return may vary depending on how fast a particular toy manufacturer can handle an emergency order for another 100,000 units.

Could toys be made in America? In the long run, maybe, but not before Nov. 2025. The Chinese companies have very well-tuned supply chains for molds, dyes, labor, and safety techniques that can't be reproduced in the U.S. quickly. And even if they could, the end products would cost more, maybe even more than the Chinese products with the tariffs.

In short, for a lot of kids, especially poor ones whose parents cannot afford $20 for the cheapest Barbie doll, Christmas this year could be quite Grinchy. (V)

Big Ten Schools Are Uniting

Harvard's refusal to bow down to Donald Trump may be inspiring other universities to do likewise, even if they are not as well endowed as Harvard. To some extent, they can deal with that by banding together, and that is now happening among the Big Ten schools, of which there are 18 (Big Eighteen just doesn't sound as cool as Big Ten).

The initial deal has three parts. First, the schools will share legal resources. Second, the schools will share PR resources. Third, the schools will start to create a fund to provide immediate and strategic support to any of the members that are attacked. Rachel Maddow called it a "little NATO treaty." Now that the ball is rolling, there could be more arrangements like this. Maybe other industries will get the idea, too.

The process was started by the faculty senate at Rutgers University. It passed a nonbinding resolution asking the president of Rutgers to help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Pact among all members of the Big Ten. So far, the senates at Michigan State, the University of Nebraska, Indiana University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have adopted the Rutgers resolution.

In addition, nearly 80 mostly former (and a few current) college presidents have signed a letter condemning what Trump did to Harvard. If you are looking for the list of signatories, here it is. (V)

Elections Matter

Susan Crawford was just elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and already it matters. Wisconsin law grants the governor the power to partially veto bills. Not only may the governor veto sections of a bill, but he can even cross out words and numbers. And mathematical symbols. No other state grants as fine-grained veto power to the governor as Wisconsin. And Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) knows this and can wield a fine-point Sharpie as a real weapon.

In particular, in 2023, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill increasing the funding of K-12 schools by $325 per student, but only until the "2024-25 school year." Here's where the Sharpie came in. Evers crossed out the "20" and the hyphen, so the text read until the "2425 school year," which is 400 years in the future. The legislature wasn't impressed and sued. Now the state Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 along party lines that what Evers did falls within his partial veto power.

Evers isn't the first governor to go down this road. Previous governors have crossed out letters to form new words and crossed out large numbers of words to create new sentences. Those practices have been banned, but there hasn't been a law or constitutional amendment banning deleting numbers and hyphens, so Evers gave it a whirl, and due to Crawford's election, it worked. (V)

Stefanik May Run for Governor of New York

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), previously a moderate, became a flaming Trumper and it worked like magic, propelling her into the House leadership. Since she was worshipping Donald Trump at every turn, he decided to appoint her as ambassador to the United Nations, a position she very much wanted so she could tell all those countries how great Trump is—and add some foreign policy experience to her CV for a possible campaign for higher office. Unfortunately, with the House now being 220R, 213D and two (Democratic) vacancies, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) can afford only three Republicans going rogue on him—four is fatal if the Democrats stick together. When the Big Bill containing all of Trump's priorities comes to a vote, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is a hard "no," Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is a probable "no," and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is a possible "no," so Stefanik's vote might be needed to pass the bill.

For this reason, Trump pulled the plug on Stefanik's nomination. She can't go back to her old leadership position, because with Johnson expecting her to resign from the House momentarily, he gave her leadership slot to Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) and McClain does not want to give it back. So Trump's machinations caused Stefanik's career to look like this:

Backbencher → #3 in Republican caucus → Nominee for U.N. ambassador → Backbencher

Stefanik is not a happy camper being made a backbencher again. She doesn't see much of an opportunity to advance in the House, even though Johnson tried to create a new "leadership" post for her, so she is now seriously considering running for governor of New York State next year.

Republicans are petrified. They had expected that Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), a moderate, would cruise to the nomination and have a decent shot at unseating the not-terribly-popular Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY). What they absolutely do not want is a bitter ideological primary with a real possibility of an unelectable fire-breathing Trumper winning it. That would throw away a genuine chance at flipping the governor's mansion in a very blue state, not something that happens every day.

Stefanik hasn't declared yet, but if she wants a promotion, running for governor against an unpopular incumbent is probably her best shot. She could wait until 2028 and run for the Senate, but her opponent then would probably be either Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), both of whom are far more popular than Hochul. Republicans will probably ask Stefanik to be a "team player," but she is probably not in much of a mood to hear that after what they did to her. (V)

Barbara Lee Is Elected Mayor of Oakland

The mayoralty of Oakland is kind of a booby prize for politicians who are past their use-by date. Jerry Brown was elected mayor of Oakland in 1999, long after he stopped being governor of California. It is kind of a step down (though, in fairness, Brown became governor of California again after his mayoral term). Ron Dellums was elected mayor of Oakland in 2007, long after he was a powerful 14-term congressman. Now Barbara Lee (78) has been elected mayor of Oakland after she ended a 27-year career in the House so she could make a pointless run for the Senate against two fundraising powerhouses.

It wasn't an easy win for Lee. She beat City Council member Loren Taylor 53% to 47%. That is a small margin for someone who is much better known than Taylor on account of her representing Oakland in Congress for almost 30 years.

The special election was called because the previous mayor, Sheng Thao, was recalled after news that she was corrupt dominated the headlines. She was formally indicted on federal bribery charges in January. The city is a mess now, and it will be up to Lee to clean it up, even though she has no executive experience at any level. Why she even wanted the job escapes us. (V)

Mark Carney Is Running for Prime Minister of Canada on an Anti-Trump Platform

Historically, Canadian politicians all tried to emphasize how well they got along with the U.S. president. Being buddy-buddy with POTUS was seen by the voters as a huge plus, given how dependent Canada is on the U.S. for defense, trade, and so many other things.

Now, the script has completely flipped. The Liberal Party candidate for prime minister, Mark Carney, is talking about how he will Trump-proof Canada, to make it less dependent on the U.S. and less likely to be taken over as the 51st state. Campaigning on how much you hate the U.S. president and what you will do to keep him at arm's length is unheard of. And if this is how it is going in Canada, America's long-time closest ally, imagine how elections in Denmark or France are going to go. Hating America is going to be a winning position everywhere.

One thing Carney wants to do is beef up Canada's defense, especially in the North, to deter Chinese and Russian over-the-pole incursions. He also wants to break down trade barriers between the provinces, to encourage more interprovincial trade to make up for lost trade with the U.S. Another point is providing support for Canada's farmers, many of whom exported their crops to the U.S. with no tariffs under the USMCA and now face tariffs that seem to change every day.

Another key point in Carney's program is enhancing trade relationships with the E.U. and China, to replace trade with the U.S. He is also eyeing trade with South America and other Asian countries. Once those relationships have been established, they may not be easy to undo.

Carney is even popular in Quebec, despite his French being kind of shaky and his knowledge of the province being very rudimentary. He grew up in Alberta, where French is about as common as it is in Alberta's neighbor to the south, Montana. Despite these things, he and his party now have huge leads in Quebec. Even the separatists are warming to Carney. They reason that the French language and culture have a better chance of surviving in one of ten provinces rather than in one of 51 states.

Carney's main opponent, Pierre Poilievre, is stuck. His schtick is that he gets along great with Trump and would work well with him. That is so 20th century now. Voters don't want to work with Trump. They hate him and want to reduce contact with the U.S. Peepee, as he is known, has a Texas-size problem—OK, a Quebec-size problem. (V)

Pope Francis Has Died

At 7:35 a.m. Rome time today, Pope Francis died. Interestingly enough, the last person who had an audience with him was J.D. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 after being raised as an evangelical. His wife is a practicing Hindu. He takes her to church every week but feels bad about it.

The election of a new pope won't even start for a couple of weeks. If you want to see a movie about the process, fortunately one, Conclave, came out last year. It is a political thriller.

Although the pope is nominally a religious leader, recent ones have become increasingly political. Pope Francis emphasized Jesus' message about caring for the poor. Francis has had a long history of criticizing Donald Trump. In accordance with Francis' sympathy for the poor, he said that Trump's plan for mass deportation would be "disgraceful." Francis was also accepting of LGBTQ+ Catholics and said that priests could bless (but not marry) same-sex couples.

The pope's views no doubt have some impact on American Catholics. If he believes that God loves all good Catholics, even gay ones, it is surely harder for Catholics to hate them. After all, if God loves someone, who are you to hate him or her? Consequently, it matters for U.S. politics who the next pope is. The invisible primary has long been underway. The pope is generally chosen from among the 135 cardinals, but that is not a formal requirement. Any male Catholic is a possibility. We wonder what Vance would do if they picked him and he had to choose between the vice presidency and the papacy. Some papal observers think that these eight are the most papabile.

• Péter Erdő (72, Hungarian) is a conservative who wants to undo everything Francis did and get back to basics.
• Mario Grech (68, Maltese) is a (conservative) secretary-general of the synod of bishops and understands Vatican politics well.
• Pietro Parolin (70, Italian) is the Vatican's "prime minister" and a very competent international diplomat.
• Robert Sarah (79, Guinean) has criticized gender ideology and Islamic radicalism; probably a longshot.
• Luis Antonio Tagle (67, Filipino) is a humble, friendly progressive often referred to as the "Asian Francis."
• Jose Tolentino (59, Portuguese) is a liberal from Madeira and is in charge of culture and education at the Vatican.
• Peter Turkson (76, Ghanaian) would be an interesting choice as the Church is trying to expand in Africa.
• Matteo Zuppi (69, Italian) is a progressive close to Francis and could be picked if the cardinals want Francis II.

Here is a different list. Parolin, Sarah, and Tagle are the only ones on both lists. Expect more lists in the days to come.

But it could be a dark horse (dark sheep?). Francis was not polling well before his election and sort of came out of nowhere. In the end, the choice is a mix of ideology, theology, politics, personality, age, and lobbying skill. If the cardinals have trouble agreeing on a pope, one potential out is kicking the can down the road by choosing an elderly pope who is expected to go visit the big church in the sky shortly. In contrast, a young one is more likely to have a long reign and lock in his preferences permanently.

One thing to keep in mind is that most Catholics are no longer living in Europe or North America, and growth is mostly in Third World countries, so a pope from there is a real possibility. Also important is that Francis has appointed two-thirds of the cardinals who are eligible to vote (those under 80) and he appointed mostly people who think like him. This suggests that a progressive cardinal from Africa, Asia, or South America might have the edge. It takes a two-thirds majority to win the election, so horses are traded and sausages are made. Thank heaven the whole election process usually takes at most 4 weeks, not 4 years. (V)

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