WASHINGTON—Donald Trump is racking up wins, or at least winning extra time to damage democracy, from many of the latest Supreme Court rulings. The High Court’s nod of approval for Trump’s attack on democracy should be no surprise, coming as it has, from a Court that greenlighted secret corporate campaign financing, killed the Voting Rights Act, ended the constitutional right to an abortion, killed affirmative action on college campuses, allowed almost everyone and anyone to brandish guns and ruled that the president has virtually dictatorial powers.
And now, in an absurd attempt to avoid accusations that it is biased in favor of Trump, it is employing creative ways of allowing him to do what he wants by ruling on technicalities. A good example is its recent ruling that prevents Venezuelan immigrants from fighting deportation to El Salvador or other third countries. Instead of stopping those unconstitutional actions outright the Court issued a convoluted ruling that allows the injustice to continue on the technical grounds that the immigrants had sued in the wrong court.
Trump is battling now for the right of his ICE agents to pick up, detain and disappear people of color, for eliminating the First Amendment right of free speech for pro-Palestinian protesters, for his own right to withhold federal funds regardless of what Congress enacts and for the campaign by his puppeteer, Elon Musk, to chainsaw his way through federal agencies, programs and people.
On much of this Trump has compliant courts in his corner, including the five-justice GOP-named right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. All of which explains how the radical Republican regime of Trump racked up some major wins in court in late March and early April.
The latest win for Trump came on April 8, in one of the larger cases, involving the Musk-Trump firing of 24,000 probationary workers from multiple agencies, for little reason or none at all. The Supreme Court said the firings, ordered by Trump’s Office of Personnel Management—its HR agency–could go ahead despite an April 1 injunction against them from the U.S. District Court of Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, also in San Francisco.
The justices tossed the judge’s temporary ban on technical grounds. While AFSCME, the Government Employees (AFGE) and two of its locals, the Association of Flight Attendants and the Union of Health Care Professionals had the right to bring the case to court—“standing” in legalese—five non-profit groups in on it didn’t, the justices said.
“There is no doubt that thousands of public service employees were unlawfully fired in an effort to cripple federal agencies and their crucial programs that serve millions of Americans every day,” the unions said. They called the Supreme Court’s ruling “deeply disappointing but is only a momentary pause in our efforts to enforce the trial court’s orders and hold the federal government accountable.
“Despite this setback, our coalition remains unwavering in fighting for these workers who were wronged by the administration, and in protecting the freedoms of the American people. In fact, plaintiffs will be back in court tomorrow developing alternative grounds for relief. This battle is far from over.”
Haven’t stopped Trump foes
Such setbacks haven’t stopped Trump’s foes, especially his union foes, from trying to halt his onslaught. As AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler says, the large swath of the country that hates what Trump is doing looks to labor to lead the fight. So unions are suing and sometimes winning against would-be tyrant Trump.
“Understand that when they come for one of us, they come for all of us,” Shuler explained in an April 8 speech to North America’s Building Trades Unions’ legislative conference. Once Trump comes after federal workers, as it has in courts and via multibillionaire Musk, “They’re coming for you next.
“We have seen this movie before.”
In some of the worst cases, Trump hasn’t even bothered with following the law. He has just gone ahead and done whatever he wants, courts, Constitution—and everyone else—be damned.
The most notorious cases have been ICE agents’ summary kidnappings, arrests, handcuffing, detention and disappearing of anyone who’s brown-skinned. Their first excuse was to detain students —including grad students who were union leaders—who spoke out for the pro-Palestinian cause.
Deportations of at least three dozen students have occurred in California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Washington state and elsewhere. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has dropped that excuse and is just rounding up anyone it wants. In one recent outrage, it arrested and handcuffed a Bronx woman, who was undocumented, and her three children and shipped them off to detention in a notorious Louisiana jail, far from family, friends or lawyers who could help get them out.
One of the handcuffed kids was a third-grader.
Then, on April 8, ICE and the IRS agreed to trade data on “immigrants… for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally In the U.S.,” the New York Daily News reported. That violates the IRS’s confidentiality code. That agreement was in court documents. ICE will submit names and addresses of migrants—read “people of color”–to the IRS “for cross-verification against tax records.”
Other recent cases include, but are not limited to:
- Arresting 100 Venezuelans, depositing them on planes and flying them to El Salvador, where they’re lodged in one of the continent’s most-notorious jails—all in defiance of a court order that they get hearings and be given due process of law. When the court order came through, the planes were airborne. ICE refused to have the pilot reverse course, as had been ordered by the judge.
Trump is paying the Salvadoran regime, considered a U.S. puppet, $6 million to house 100 Venezuelans in the Latin American nation’s Terrorism Confinement Center. Some were picked up because they sported tattoos. One tattoo read “Mama” and “Papa” in Spanish.
- By a 5-4 margin on April 8, the justices let Trump invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to arrest people, but mandated they get the right to challenge the constitutionality of their arrest and detention following ordinary due process of law. The catch is detainees must be tried where they’re being held, not in D.C. Two who were arrested are in the Orange County, N.Y., jail in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley. The ACLU is suing on their behalf with a hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern time on April 9. The hearing will be in Manhattan.
“The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been a power invoked in time of war, and plainly only applies to warlike actions,” the ACLU said. “It cannot be used here against nationals of a country—Venezuela—with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States, and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States.”
- The latest lower court win against Trump, announced the afternoon of April 8, overturned his ejection of the Associated Press, the world’s largest, most-respected news organization, from the White House. Trump threw AP out from there and from all its events, after the wire service wouldn’t bow to his white nationalist renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, called the ejection unconstitutional. Freedom of the press, he ruled, includes freedom not just to print the news, but to gather it.
“Under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” McFadden wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”
- Before McFadden’s decision, the News Guild-CWA and other unions got a temporary restraining order on March 28 from a federal judge in D.C. to prevent Musk, Trump and their puppet, former Arizona newscaster—and Republican U.S. Senate nominee—Kari Lake from dismantling the Agency for Global Media. The agency oversees Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and similar stations. The Washington-Baltimore News Guild represents many of the workers at those services, especially RFA.
“Proud to stand with journalists”
“We are proud to stand with journalists and media workers who sounded the alarm and fought back,” said News Guild President Jon Schleuss. “This ruling is a powerful rebuke to an administration that has shown contempt for press freedom and the rule of law.”
- On April 1, acting on what Trump claimed was an emergency, the five-justice GOP-named majority—the three Trump-named justices plus Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas–let Trump go ahead and fire 24,000 probationary federal workers, strictly because Trump could do that. At least for now.
The justices reinstated the firings of the probationary workers, pending an 8 a.m. Pacific Time hearing by U.S. District Judge Willam Alsup on April 9 on a permanent injunction. The justices tossed the judge’s temporary ban on technical grounds: While AFSCME, the Government Employees (AFGE) and two of its locals, the Association of Flight Attendants and the Union of Health Care Professionals had the right to bring the case to court—“standing” in legalese—five non-profit groups in on it didn’t.
“OPM’s actions have resulted in tremendous chaos, upending the lives of federal workers and their families. The lawsuit is one of the first to draw attention to the unilateral decision-making by OPM, which bypasses the ability of agencies to manage their own employees,” the suit says.
The unions and their allies called the justices’ pro-Trump order “deeply disappointing but only a momentary pause” in the war against Trump’s dictatorial moves. “Our coalition remains unwavering in fighting for these workers who were wronged by the administration, and in protecting the freedoms of the American people.”
- AFGE, AFSCME and other unions sought a national ban on firing any probationary workers, suing in federal court in Greenbelt, Md. Eighteen states and D.C. joined them, and Judge Richard Bennett ruled for them—but restricted his order to covering workers only in those states and D.C. That left Trump, Musk and 32 other states to their own devices.
- By a 5-4 margin, with the five GOP-named justices—including all three Trump appointees—voting “yes,” the court threw out a case by the School Administrators and other unions challenging the Education Department’s arbitrary withdrawal of $65 million in remaining teacher training money. The unions won in lower courts and sought to preserve their victory. They couldn’t. What’s left of the Education Department sought, and got, an emergency ruling.
- The American Library Association and AFSCME marched into court in D.C. on April 8 to challenge Trump puppeteer Musk’s gutting of the small Institute for Museum and Library Services. The agency provides grants to the nation’s museums, often for special exhibitions. Musk and Trump would ax both the agency and its workers.
One unstated subtext: Some of exhibits the institute OK’d in past years cover “diversity, equity and inclusion” issues, rather than whitewashing history and culture, as Musk, Trump and their white nationalist backers—including the corporate class—prefer. It dumped DEI as soon as Trump did.
“Libraries and museums contain our collective history and knowledge, while also providing safe spaces for learning, cultural expression and access to critical public resources,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders explained a statement.
“They represent the heart of our communities, and the cultural workers who keep these institutions running enrich thousands of lives every day. Library workers do everything from helping people apply for jobs to administering lifesaving care all while facing increasing violence on the job. Their work deserves support, not cuts.”
AFSCME has recently been successfully organizing library and museum workers in world-renowned institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and other museums and cultural sites.
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