Trump wants to send U.S. citizens to foreign prisons
Donald Trump wants the ability to take U.S. citizens into custody and send them to overseas prisons, such as the one in El Salvador where the Trump Administration has already sent hundreds of people without filing charges and giving them due process of law. During a meeting at the White House, Trump told El Salvador’s strongman President Bukele that he’s going to need to build more maximum security prisons. Trump also told Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin researching what the law says about sending U.S. citizens to overseas prisons. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Refusal to free Garcia
Both Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president say they will not return to the U.S. the Maryland man who the Trump Administration admitted it mistakenly sent to prison in El Salvador. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the administration to facilitate the return to the U.S. of Abrego Garcia. In a court filing last night, the Department of Homeland Security said it does not have the authority to bring him back to the U.S. In the latest filing, the Trump Administration did not provide any evidence that Garcia was a criminal or was in the U..S. illegally.
Biden and O’Malley to speak on saving Social Security
Former President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak in Chicago today, his first public speech since leaving the White House. The speech was billed as a call for people to rise up and resist Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle Social Security. Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley also was scheduled to speak. In a television interview last night, O’Malley warned that the Trump Administration moving 6,000 living people onto Social Security’s database of dead people could be a precursor to Trump doing more of that to people he doesn’t like or considers to be political enemies. Once declared to be dead by Social Security, a living person cannot work, have bank accounts, get a mortgage or loans or credit cards. Getting back onto the living person database can be an enormous challenge, especially now that the Trump Administration has fired Social Security employees and is closing offices.
Trump goes after Harvard
The Trump Administration says it is freezing more than $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts for Harvard University following the university’s refusal to cave to the administration’s demands that it change its policies. Harvard said that what Trump has been doing in attacking institutions of higher learning risks the health and well-being of millions of individuals as well as the economic security and vitality of the U.S. Harvard’s President Alan Garber said Harvard will not surrender its independence or Constitutional rights. He said no government should be able to dictate what a university can teach or who can attend the school.
AP still kept out of White House event
Despite a court order, the White House kept the Associated Press from covering the meeting yesterday between Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president. A federal court ruled that the Associated Press must be granted the same White House access as other news media and the White House could not keep the news agency out simply because it does not like some of what it reports. The White House has appealed the court order, and the U.S Court of Appeals set a hearing on the matter for Thursday, meaning the court order requiring access for the APÂ remains in effect for now.
Proposed gutting of State Department
Reports say that Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the White House wants to cut funding for the State Department by 50%. OMB head Russell Vought tried to make substantial cuts to the department during the first Trump Administration. The plan would include closing diplomatic stations overseas, cutting the staff of diplomats, and ending U.S. funding for NATO headquarters and the United Nations. Foreign aid would be cut by 75%. It’s reported that there have been discussions within the administration about the plan.
