U.S. Immigration
Read also:
- UN accuses Russia of committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine
- DWP minister confronted with Liz Kendall disability benefit tweet in brutal TV clash
- Matt Hancock defends multi-million Covid PPE contracts for Tory friends
- Nicholas Prosper’s dad weeps as court told his family’s deaths prevented school massacre
- Ministers quietly delayed repealing Tory union-bashing laws and Union leaders are ‘dismayed’
News Analysis
Legal scholars say that the nation has reached a tipping point and that the right question is not whether there is a crisis, but rather how much damage it will cause.
By Adam Liptak
Reporting from Washington
Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, violating an instruction that could not have been plainer or more direct.
Justice Department lawyers later justified the administration’s actions with contentions that many legal experts said bordered on frivolous.
The line between arguments in support of a claimed right to disobey court orders and outright defiance has become gossamer thin, they said, again raising the question of whether the latest clash between President Trump and the judiciary amounts to a constitutional crisis.
Legal scholars say that is no longer the right inquiry. Mr. Trump is already undercutting the separation of powers at the heart of the constitutional system, they say, and the right question now is how it will transform the nation.
“If anyone is being detained or removed based on the administration’s assertion that it can do so without judicial review or due process,” said Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia, “the president is asserting dictatorial power and ‘constitutional crisis’ doesn’t capture the gravity of the situation.”
Mr. Trump raised the stakes on Tuesday by calling for the impeachment of the judge who issued the order, James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court in Washington, describing him on social media as a “Radical Left Lunatic.”
If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
