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US Supreme Court
US Supreme Court stays deportation of Venezuelan migrants – for now
The US Supreme Court issued a decision early Saturday temporarily halting the Trump administration’s imminent deportation of Venezuelan migrants. The men, accused of belonging to criminal gangs, were to be removed under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law usually used in wartime.
Instead, the justices instructed the government “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.” Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
What was the basis for the decision? Time. While the Supreme Court had upheld the use of the statute in other cases, it required that deportees have adequate time to contest their removal. The American Civil Liberties Union claimed that in this case the men had not had adequate time to do so: Detainees were told they would be removed that evening or the next day, and some had reportedly already been loaded onto buses.
What’s next? In response, on Saturday afternoon the Trump administration asked the justices to reject the migrants’ stay after its additional review. There was no indication that the administration would defy the Supreme Court in the meantime – a move that would have sparked a constitutional crisis.
The first U.S. military aircraft to carry detained migrants to a detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, who Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called "highly dangerous criminal aliens," is boarded from an unspecified location on Feb. 4, 2025.
Trump’s plan to send migrants to Guantánamo meets first legal hurdle
On Sunday, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico granted a temporary restraining order on jurisdictional grounds barring three Venezuelan men from being moved to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay.
It’s the first legal challenge to the Trump administration’s plan to use the base – best known as a prison holding detainees from the “War on Terror” – to house non-citizens to be deported. So far, around 50 people, all believed to be men, have been moved to the base from the US. But the agencies overseeing the flights and detentions haven’t released critical information about the people being held, including their identities or the status of their immigration cases.
The three men, Abrahan Barrios Morales, Luis Perez Parra, and Leonel Rivas Gonzales, all scheduled for deportation since 2023, have been held at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico since November 2023. They are part of a case challenging their indefinite detention at the center, a case that is also being overseen by Judge Gonzales.
“There’s only one purpose to bring [migrants] to Guantánamo,” Seton Hall law professor Jonathan Hafetz says. “To try to extinguish or limit rights that [migrants] have; to have greater secrecy, and fewer protections for migrants.”
This is not the first time that migrants hoping to settle in the US have been held at the base. But the earlier cases differ from those under Trump’s policy because they never made it to the US in the first place; migrants held at Guantánamo were typically coming from Haiti or Cuba and interdicted before they could get to the mainland. Trump is sending people already in the US to Guantánamo, which migrants and advocates see as a legal black hole.
The “War on Terror” made Guantánamo synonymous with human rights abuses and indefinite detention. And while there have been significant legal battles over the “War on Terror” detainees’ constitutional rights, Hafetz says the current situation is more clear-cut.
“Anyone who’s in the United States – and even if they're moved out – you cannot take away someone’s constitutional rights by moving them into an offshore prison,” he says. Furthermore, ICE has no congressional authority to hold migrants at the base; there’s no legal foundation for the plan, according to Hafetz.
Thus far, there are no legal challenges to the new administration’s policy – the lack of information about who’s been moved makes that difficult. But the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal aid and human rights groups have requested immediate access to and information about the people being held there, indicating that bigger legal challenges are coming.
Members of Mexico's National Guard queue to board a vehicle upon disembarking from a plane, after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump to bolster border enforcement efforts in response to Trump's demand to crack down on immigration and drug smuggling, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Feb. 4, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Mexican troops head to the border, Carney promises defense binge, Critics call on Canada to suspend US agreement, Tariff talk tops tickers
7,000: Earlier this week, at least 7,000 Mexican troops were on their way to the US-Mexico border as part of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s deal with the Trump administration to postpone, for one month, the imposition of a 25% US tariff on all Mexican goods. Experts say that the deployment, meant to meet Trump’s demands that Mexico crack down on fentanyl traffickers and illegal migrants, represents a reshuffling among the tens of thousands of troops that Mexico already deploys throughout the country to tackle these issues.
2 in 5: Mark Carney, who is campaigning for the Liberal Party leadership, has pledged to meet a target of spending 2% of GDP on defense. That would be two years earlier than stipulated under current commitments made by outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The matter has taken on fresh urgency in light of US President Donald Trump’s demands that NATO allies raise the benchmark to 5% of GDP – and his threats to annex Canada.
21: Immigration advocates and lawyers are calling on Ottawa to suspend a 21-year-old agreement with the United States under which Canada sends asylum-seekers apprehended at the border back into the US for processing. Critics say that the Trump administration’s recent moves to drastically restrict refugees’ access to asylum petitions fall afoul of international law, and they warn that Canada should not be complicit in these violations by sending people back to the US.
200: What’s the word among Wall Street analysts these days? Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs. So far this year, the term has come up at least once in more than 200 earnings calls with top companies listed on the S&P, a major stock index of American firms. The big question, of course, is how are companies planning to cope either with higher US tariffs themselves, or with the broader political and economic uncertainty about if, when, and how heavily Trump will use them.People gather during a service at Starting Point Community Church, which assists members of the newly arrived migrant community, amid concerns of intensified immigration enforcement.
Hard Numbers: Trump targets Chicago immigrants, Senate to vote on ICC sanctions, DeepSeek drowns tech stocks, Lukashenko “wins” again, China’s DAM big project
50,000: Over the weekend, plans leaked that the Trump administration planned to target undocumented immigrants living in Chicago who have committed crimes – spurring the mayor to reaffirm the city’s commitment to being a sanctuary city. Chicago has struggled to respond to the 50,000 mostly Venezuelan migrants who have arrived in the city over the last two years but says that it will resist the president’s deportation plans.
7: Senate Democrats and Republicans are negotiating changes to a House-passed bill that would impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court over its alleged unfair targeting of Israeli officials ahead of a vote on Tuesday. Tech companies have raised concerns about potentially being affected by the sanctions, as they provide cybersecurity support to the ICC. All 53 Republicans are expected to support the bill, and at least seven Democrats are likely to vote for it as well. European officials, meanwhile, have expressed concern that the legislation could undermine the institution.
15: Global tech stocks plunged on Monday after Chinese startup DeepSeek launched a lower-cost AI model than US competitors, in what Marc Andreessen called AI’s “Sputnik moment.” DeepSeek’s assistant surpassed ChatGPT in Apple App Store downloads, triggering widespread sell-offs. Nvidia fell nearly 17%, leading the Nasdaq’s 3% decline. The startup claims its model uses less data and costs only $6 million to train, compared to competitors with much higher costs.
86.8: Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, secured another term on Sunday with 86.8% of the votes in an election widely condemned by Western leaders as fraudulent. With opposition leaders either imprisoned or exiled, and independent media banned, European officials dismissed the results as neither free nor fair.
300 billion: China is building the world’s largest hydropower dam in Tibet, with the potential to generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year, triple that of the Three Gorges Dam. While crucial for China’s clean energy goals and economic stimulus, the project has sparked environmental and security concerns from neighboring India and Bangladesh who worry the project could threaten their water security.
How Trump's assertive foreign policy impacts international relations
And the response by President Trump was immediately 25%, maybe 50% tariffs, and shut off visas and shut down diplomatic engagement. And there was immediate response by President Petro that was over the top, and as Trump's own responses are over the top, and going to completely hit the Americans back really hard. Now, America is Colombia's most important trade partner, and the size of these countries is a little bit different. And within a couple of hours, Petro very quietly accepted Trump's terms. The deported Colombians will be accepted back in Colombia, and the trade war with Colombia is in our rearview mirror. Not really a surprise.
So Trump is going out there, and he's saying all these extraordinary, extravagant things. Huge exaggerations about what he demands and what he wants. And if you're Colombia, the response was absolutely on par. I mean, the post that we saw from President Petro, who is also kind of a populist firebrand on the left, isn't enormously popular, frankly, and has had a lot of difficulty in passing economic policies. But he gave it a shot and it was entertaining to watch and read and a lot of Colombians responded well to it. It felt like good old nationalism. And of course, he had to back down. Why? Because you're not allowed to do the same thing that Trump is. It's not just about who's right, it's also about who's powerful. And Trump's more than happy to hit him with a stick. And so that turned out to be a loss pretty quickly for the Colombian government.
There are a lot of other countries that are working the same way. I see this happening with Mexico where the Mexican president has been incredibly careful. US is the most important relationship. Suddenly they are seizing enormous amounts of fentanyl. More in one seizure than they've done in four years under Biden and showing Trump, "Look at what we can accomplish because we know this is important to you." And working to get Chinese trade and investment that is problematic and coming through to the United States out of Mexico and willing to put more money and resources, people on Mexico's southern border to reduce the numbers of people that are coming through Mexico into the United States. They desperately don't want to fight with the Americans. They're going to make a lot of offers. Call it defense. Call it capitulation. But that's definitely what you're seeing.
I see this from Denmark, which is publicly trying to say nothing. There've been some leaks. But in general it's been very careful both from Denmark and all of the Nordic leaders I've spoken to, they've been very, very careful. Nothing public about the challenges that they're having. Of course, privately completely unacceptable that the United States would make demands of Greenland and wouldn't work through a very stalwart, though small, ally. The Danes who do everything the Americans ask in terms of coordinating on military exercises and providing multilateral support when the Americans want more participation in different wars or humanitarian support. You name it, the Danes are there. But that didn't matter to Trump. He said, "I want Greenland."
And they are privately trying really hard to get this out of the headlines to say nothing that would be provocative, not respond the way the Colombian President did, not get Trump to do anything even more angry. And instead, find a way to keep Greenland a part of Denmark, don't vote for independence and keep the alliance stable. Most places around the world, that's what they're doing. They're acting like Mark Zuckerberg and Meta and all of those tech titans that have given the money and have gone down to Mar-a-Lago and are saying, "No, we've always loved you Trump and we want to work with you and please don't hurt us."
But there are a few exceptions and I think it's worth mentioning who I think they are. Exception number one, this may surprise you: Canada. Canada is an exception not because they're unfriendly with the US, not because they don't depend on the US, but because they have an election coming up. Their government fell apart. And now everybody in Canada is angry at the United States with all of this threat of tariffs and we want more money for the Americans for security, and you guys should be a 51st state. Not only are the liberals angry, the conservatives are angry and they have to outdo each other to be tough on Trump in the United States or they think they're going to lose the election upcoming. So the fact is that Trump, I think, made a strategic mistake in going after Canada early because the Canadians are not in the position to respond well given the election.
The other two exceptions, the Europeans who want to be constructive with the US but have a stronger position if they can be collective through the EU and on some areas they can. On Russia-Ukraine, they can be collective, which has helped them bring Trump closer to the European position on Russia-Ukraine in the last three months than he was when he was initially elected. On trade, on tariffs, on China, Europe is more collective and has more regulatory force as long as they can act together. That is going to continue to happen, gives them more leverage, vis-a-vis the Americans.
And then finally the Chinese who don't act collectively, but they are stronger as an individual country. And they're going to be much tougher to engage with as we saw with the first phase one, phase two trade deal. It took a very long time to sort of come together and then they didn't actually uphold a lot of what they promised. A lot of decent conversations, but the Chinese were much more willing to lecture Marco Rubio in their first call with the US Secretary of State than anyone else he has spoken with around the world. Why is that? Because the Chinese want to show they're not going to be pushovers and that they are tougher and bigger and stronger and can hit back the way that many other countries cannot. What does that mean for US-China relationship? Probably going to get worse before it gets better. That would be my bet at this point. But we'll see how much of a deal Trump really wants.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Several groups led by DACA recipients gathered at La Placita Olvera in Los Angeles, California, on November 11, 2024, for a rally and march in response to policies President-elect Trump has promised to enforce against immigrants who have entered the country.
Can Trump end birthright citizenship?
The lawsuit, led by New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts, argues that Trump can’t unilaterally rewrite the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship to every baby born in the US. They point to the Supreme Court’s Wong Kim Ark decision, which set the precedent of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents’ legal status in 1873.
Trump argues that revoking birthright citizenship is critical to curbing illegal migration to the US. He is supported by a minority of legal scholars who say that Wong Kim Ark decision misinterpreted the Constitution. They argue that because unauthorized migrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of US law – in the sense that they can’t vote and are excluded from certain rights afforded to Americans – that the 14th Amendment does not apply to them or their children.
Will Trump succeed? Trump can’t rewrite the 14th Amendment or 100 years of legal precedent with an executive order, but he could with the help of sympathetic judges. Lower courts are likely to side with the states, but if Trump appeals, it is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court, where the Conservative majority has not shied away from overturning legal precedent in recent terms.Washington , DC - January 20: President-elect Donald Trump arrives ahead of the 60th inaugural ceremony on January 20, 2025, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States in a rare indoor inauguration ceremony. The parade was also moved inside Capitol One Arena due to weather.
Trump’s 2025 Inaugural: From American Carnage to Golden Age
“Nothing will stand in our way. The future is ours and our golden age has just begun.”
With those words, President Donald J. Trump concluded his 2025 inaugural address, promising an American renaissance. Invoking the doctrine of American exceptionalism, he declared that “We are going to win like never before” and pledged to be a unifier and peacemaker who would nonetheless put America First.
A shift in tone. The speech was a stark contrast to Trump’s inaugural address of 2017, where he painted a gloomy picture of “American carnage”: a nation riddled with crime, poverty, and economic decline. This time, while he heavily criticized the previous administration for its decisions, Trump adopted a more optimistic and forward-looking tone, emphasizing unity and national restoration – and even territorial expansion. Trump invoked the concept of Manifest Destiny, promising to plant the American flag on Mars, as well as rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and retake the Panama Canal.
Border Security and Immigration. Trump will declare a national emergency at America’s southern border (which earned him one of several standing ovations), reinstate his “Remain in Mexico” policy, and designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He also pledged to use the Enemy Aliens act of 1798 to deploy military power to eliminate foreign gangs in American cities.
Health and Wealth. Trump promised to “end the chronic disease epidemic” but gave no further specifics. On the prosperity front, he promised to restore America’s strength in manufacturing and that his cabinet would “marshal powers to defeat inflation and bring down costs and prices”, which he said were caused by government overspending and high energy prices.
Drill baby drill. To that end, Trump promised to overturn President Joe Biden’s Green New Deal and expand the exploitation of oil and gas resources, which he dubbed the “liquid gold beneath our feet” that America should export. He spoke of tariffs, but without specifics, promising to create an External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs duties and revenues, as well as a department of government efficiency to cut spending.
Woke wars. Trump promised to sign an executive order to “stop all government censorship”, “bring back free speech to America” and create a society that is “colour blind and merit based.” He declared that the United States has only two genders, male and female.
The military. Trump promised to restore back pay to servicemen who had lost their jobs for refusing the federal COVID vaccine mandate. He pledged to remove “radical theories” from the military and leave it “free to focus on its sole mission – defeating America’s enemies.”
Will Trumponomics cause a slowdown for the US economy?
Donald Trump’s economic agenda blends deregulation, anti-immigration policies, higher tariffs, and loose fiscal policy—an approach that "cuts in multiple different directions," says Jon Lieber during a GZERO livestream to discuss the 2025 Top Risks report. Lieber says deregulation could boost productivity, while measures like deportations and trade barriers risk straining industries reliant on foreign labor and open markets. With markets pricing in optimism but key sectors facing uncertainty, the impact of Trumponomics will hinge on how far the administration goes in implementing its campaign promises in 2025 and beyond.
Take a deep dive with the panel in our full discussion, livestreamed on Jan. 6 here.