Trump Administration Caught Trying To Sneak One By The Courts Yet Again

INSIDE: Emil Bove ... Rudy G ... The Duke-Stir

(Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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A Replay of the Alien Enemies Act Debacle … With One Big Difference

The Trump administration was busted over the holiday weekend trying to whisk unaccompanied Guatemalan children out of the country.

It was a replay of the mid-March weekend when the Trump administration secretly launched its Alien Enemies Act deportations. But unlike the Constitution-shaking defiance it showed last time, administration officials appear so far to have abided by the emergency court orders to stop the flights, deplane the children, and return them to the U.S. government agency that originally had custody of them.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of Washington, D.C., put in a yeoman’s effort over the weekend to block the removals and to do so in a way that gave the administration no benefit of the doubt and little to no wiggle room.

Sooknanan first learned of the emergency lawsuit by the National Immigration Law Center after it was filed around 1 a.m. ET on Sunday morning. She issued a middle-of-the-night restraining order to block the removals of the 10 unaccompanied minors who filed the lawsuit and scheduled a Sunday mid-afternoon hearing to consider expanding her order to include some 600 similarly situated Guatemalan children in the United States.

But after receiving reports that the flights were underway, Sooknanan issued a second order barring the removal of the larger group of children and moved the hearing up to midday. Lawfare’s Anna Bower was all over it in real time and chronicled the emergency hearing.

“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are,” Sooknanan said when she convened the hearing.

The administration contended in court that the deportations weren’t removals but repatriations done in conjunction with the Guatemalan government and parents or families who wanted the children back. The plaintiffs contested those claims, and the dead-of-night operation suggested nefariousness was afoot.

At least one plane carrying children may have taken off before returning to the United States, a Trump DOJ lawyer told the court, an ironic callback to the AEA case in March when a federal judge ordered the planes to turn around but the administration ignored it.

Sooknanan ordered the Trump administration to file a series of status reports on their progress in deplaning the children and returning them to the custody of the Office of Refuge Resettlement. Those status reports continued Sunday night into midday Monday of the Labor Day weekend, when the final status report from the administration confirmed that all of the children had been returned to ORR custody. At one point, as Bower noted, Sooknanan appeared to have been awake for 20 hours straight dealing with the emergency case.

In an additional twist, reporting from Politico suggests that “some of the facilities in which the children have been housed may be resisting instructions to turn them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” Politico obtained a memo – dated Sunday and signed after Sooknanan’s order – from the acting director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement that chastised its contractors:

Negligent or intentional failure to comply with lawful requests from ORR regarding the care of children in your care facility will result in prompt legal action, and may result in civil and criminal penalties and charges, as well as suspension and termination of contractual relations with your facility.

Stay tuned.

Judge Blocks Trump’s Fast-Track Deportations

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of Washington, D.C., on Friday blocked a centerpiece of President Trump’s mass deportation strategy: fast-track deportations far from the southern border.

“When it comes to people living in the interior of the country, prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process,” Judge Cobb wrote in her ruling.

Keep an Eye on This

The ACLU is asking the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a panel decision that ended U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt of court proceedings in the original Alien Enemies Act case.

Can’t Let Go

Emil Bove continued to work at the Trump Justice Department after he was confirmed by the Senate to a federal appeals court seat, the NYT reports.

What’s the Point of Congress?

President Trump asserted the presidential power to use the “pocket rescission” to not spend nearly $5 billion in foreign aid this year, further complicating the politics of the government shutdown looming at the end of this month.

For Your Radar …

President Trump continues to reveal his rat-fucking plans for the 2026 mid-term elections in piecemeal fashion by posting threats on social media that wildly exaggerate the constitutional powers of the presidency. Trump’s latest effusion promises an executive order requiring voter ID in all elections even though the president has no power over or involvement with election administration.

2026 Ephemera

• IA-Sen: Two-term Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) will not seek re-election.

• NY-12: After more than 30 years in Congress, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) will not run in 2026.

• WI-Supreme Court: Uber-conservative and trolly Justice Rebecca Bradley won’t seek re-election next year, giving Democrats a chance to expand their majority on the court.

Good Read

The Cut: An Astrologer’s Messy Affair With a Trump Pentagon Official

Ooof …

On the same weekend that Rudy Giuliani was injured in a car accident in New Hampshire, President Trump announced that he’s awarding his former attorney the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Duke Cunningham, 1941-2025

SAN DIEGO – MARCH 3: Congressman Randy Duke Cunningham (2nd L) walks into Federal Courthouse during the sentencing phase at the U.S. District Courthouse March 3, 2006 in San Diego, California. Cunningham was found guilty of conspiracy and tax evasion for accepting more than 2.4 million in bribes and could face up to 10 years in prison. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

Disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA), the former Navy aviator whose congressional career ended in a political corruption scandal that was epic by the now-quaint standards of the time, has died at age 83. Cunningham spent nearly a decade in prison after resigning from Congress and pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. He was later pardoned by Donald Trump, on the last day of his first term as President.

Cunningham, who lived rent-free aboard a yacht docked in DC called the “Duke-Stir” that was owned by a defense contractor, admitted to taking more than $2 million in bribes in return for steering government contracts to favored contractors via earmarks. Among the lowlights of his sordid case was selling his San Diego home to the same defense contractor for far above market value and keeping a handwritten list of bribe offerings.

Longtime TPM readers will remember Cunningham as a central figure in TPM’s coverage of the rampant political corruption in George W. Bush’s second term, especially in the Tom Delay-run House of Representatives. The Cunningham case, among many other scandals, contributed to the 2006 Democratic takeover of the House, ending a dozen years of GOP control.

TPM’s Golden Duke award, celebrating the best in political corruption and scandal, is named in dishonor of Cunningham.

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