The Latest: Judge will order sworn testimony by Trump officials in case of wrongly deported man

A federal judge in Maryland will order sworn testimony by officials in President Donald Trump’s administration to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued her order after Trump officials continually refused to retrieve Abrego Garcia, saying they defied a “clear” Supreme Court order.

She said the process could take two weeks and told the attorneys on both sides to cancel any vacations or appointments. “The bottom line is it was a very simple directive,” Xinis said of her own order. “I’ve got nothing. I’ve got no real response.”

The afternoon hearing came a day after White House advisers repeated the claim that they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country. The president of El Salvador also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

Here's the latest:

Army to take over 170 square miles along southern border in anti-immigration effort

Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum said Tuesday that the Army will manage that terrain along the frontier with Mexico on an emergency basis to allow more foot patrols and infrastructure aimed at preventing illegal immigration.

A Friday memo from President Trump laid the groundwork for the transfer of the Roosevelt Reservation buffer zone from the Interior Department to the Department of Defense in an attempt to get around a federal law barring troops from being used in law enforcement on U.S. soil.

If soldiers are providing security for land that is part of an Army base, they can perform that function.

The newly announced militarized zone for New Mexico would extend farther inland than the 60-foot (20-meter) Roosevelt strip, by a distance that varies.

At least one presidential powers expert says a court challenge is likely.

Trump exempts dozens of coal plants from Biden-era rules on pollution from mercury, other toxics

The administration granted nearly 70 coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic and benzene.

A roster posted on on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website lists 47 power providers — which operate at least 66 plants — that received exemptions from Biden-era rules under the Clean Air Act. The actions follow Trump’s executive order last week boosting the struggling coal industry, a reliable but polluting energy source that has long been in decline.

Among those receiving an exemption are the massive Colstrip Generating Station in Montana, a leading emitter of pollutants such as lead and arsenic; Coal Creek Station, a large plant in North Dakota that is a top producer of mercury emissions; and the Oak Grove plant in Texas, another big polluter.

▶ Read more about the coal plant exemptions

Biden: 30% of the country ‘has no heart’

Toward the end of his speech Tuesday, the former president offered a somber reflection and said the country should not forget about upholding “fundamental American values.”

After referring to how divided the nation is, Biden said there is “a 30% that has no heart.”

“It’s what we see in America. It’s what we believe in — fairness. And that’s the America we can never forget or walk away from,” Biden said.

His reference to heartless people was interpreted on social media by some conservatives as an insult to Trump supporters.

Maryland Democratic senator to travel to El Salvador

Sen. Chris Van Hollen announced that he will make the trip Wednesday to investigate the “wellbeing” of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to a notorious prison in the Central American country in a move that officials have said was erroneous.

“Following his abduction and unlawful deportation, U.S. federal courts have ordered the safe return of my constituent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “It should be a priority of the U.S. government to secure his safe release.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and a federal judge presiding over the case ordered an “intense” two-week investigation into the government’s conduct. During a Monday Oval Office meeting, President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Garcia’s return was not possible.

Van Hollen earlier sent a letter to El Salvador’s U.S. ambassador requesting a meeting with Bukele, but he was rebuffed.

3 groups fighting child labor sue Department of Labor after millions in grant funding is cut

The groups, which combat child labor and slave labor around the world, filed the federal lawsuit Tuesday against the department after the Trump Administration canceled millions of dollars of international grants funding the programs.

The plaintiffs are the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, American Institutes for Research and Global March Against Child Labor. The nonprofits had 15 federal grants worth more than $100 million combined, but their funding and work agreements were terminated in March as part of spending cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency.

They want a judge to order the Labor Department to reinstate the grants and their programs.

Biden calls for decency, finishes first public speech since leaving office

The former president made a plea for “just basic fundamental decency.”

But he sounded pretty defeated on how polarized the country is.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Biden said. “It’s never been this divided.”

Elsewhere in his speech, he criticized the impact of federal government cuts on Social Security.

He said the Trump administration has fired seasoned employees, including in the tech division, and complained that the website has crashed and phone lines have been overwhelmed.

He also criticized billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk for calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”

“What the hell are they talking about?” Biden said. “No one, no one should take it away.”

He wrapped up his remarks after speaking for under half an hour.

Army and Air Force libraries ordered to review books for DEI material

Army and Air Force libraries have been told to go through their stacks to find books related to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to new memos obtained by The Associated Press.

The orders from service leaders come about two weeks after the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to get rid of those that promote DEI.

The latest orders are part of the Trump administration’s far-reaching efforts to purge so-called DEI content from federal agencies.

The memos suggest that any book removals will happen only after the initial lists are reviewed more closely. That slower pace may reflect a desire to be more careful about what is pulled from shelves after the Navy faced criticism over some that it removed.

Joe Biden makes first public speech since leaving office

The former president has taken the stage at the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago.

He began his speech thanking the organization for advocating for people with disabilities and reminding them that he co-sponsored the the Americans with Disabilities Act as a young senator.

“That’s what got me involved with politics in the first place,” he said.

Biden said the government must not turn its back on protecting Social Security, which he called “a sacred promise” received by 73 million Americans.

“Folks must never, ever betray that trust,” Biden said.

Biden was introduced by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who said Biden led the country out of the coronavirus pandemic and “into the strongest economic recovery of any country in the developed world.”

O’Malley served as Social Security administrator under Biden. He criticized Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk for threatening the health of Social Security.

Protesters removed from Rep. Taylor Greene town hall

Three opponents were dragged out of a town hall featuring U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, including one against whom Acworth police deployed an electrical stun gun.

“This is a town hall, this is not a political rally, this is not a protest,” Greene said as she took the stage, before thanking officers for removing the people.

Afterward she launched into a full-throated defense of Trump’s policy before a mostly friendly room of more than 150 people, arguing that the “real economy” and immigration enforcement are thriving under him.

She argued that Trump’s political opponents unfairly ignored a stock market decline during the middle of Joe Biden’s presidency and also said measures that touch everyday people are improving.

“This is the real economy, ladies and gentlemen, that affects you every single day in your life and it’s only been three months,” Greene said. “We look forward to seeing more of this.”

New executive orders signed by Trump

Among the directives signed Tuesday by the president:

— An order to overhaul federal contracts and the government’s procurement process, as well as a memorandum meant to ensure only U.S. citizens can receive Social Security benefits.

— A directive for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to look at the Medicare prescription drug pricing negotiation program established under the Biden administration. He called on Kennedy to improve transparency around the process and to lower Medicare drug coverage premiums.

Pentagon senior adviser ousted in investigation into leaks

Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has been placed on administrative leave and was escorted out of the Pentagon by security Tuesday, two defense officials said.

The officials said Caldwell’s sudden downfall was tied to an ongoing investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of department information. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

They did not disclose what leaks are being investigated, but there has been a crackdown across the Pentagon and the broader Trump administration on the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.

Caldwell, who served in the Marine Corps, was one of several senior advisers who worked closely with Hegseth.

Trump might give money and airplane tickets to immigrants who leave voluntarily

The president said he wants to give them to any immigrant who is in the country illegally who chooses to “self-deport” and also to work to get those who are “good” back in the U.S., a break from his usual hardline immigration rhetoric.

Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to carry out mass deportations, said in a recorded interview with Fox Noticias that his administration is focused right now on getting “murderers” out of the country. But for others in the U.S. illegally, he said, he intends to implement “a self-deportation program.”

Trump offered few details about the plan, including timing, but he added, “We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them — if they’re good — if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”

In a bid to corral the anti-Trump resistance, Bernie Sanders and AOC visit red states

Sanders, alongside his fellow progressive champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, took his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour deep into Trump territory this week and drew the same types of large crowds they got in liberal and battleground states.

Outside Boise on Monday, the Ford Idaho Center arena was filled to capacity, with staff forced to close the doors after admitting 12,500 people. There are just 11,902 registered Democratic voters in Canyon County, where the arena is located, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office.

While Idaho, Utah and Montana will almost certainly remain Republican strongholds for the near future, the events offer a glimpse of widespread Democratic anger over the direction Trump’s administration and a dose of hope to progressives living in the places where they’re most outnumbered.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are among a cadre of Trump critics venturing into potentially hostile territory as Democrats are thinking about how to reverse their fortunes in next year’s midterms and the following presidential election.

▶ Read more about the two progressives’ red-state tour

Judge orders sworn testimony over Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation

A federal judge said Tuesday that she will order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis sternly told administration attorneys that Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court was clear in its order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

She also disregarded Monday’s comments by White House officials and El Salvador’s president that they were unable to bring back Abrego Garcia, calling their “two very misguided ships passing in the night.”

“The Supreme Court has spoken,” Xinis said, adding that what was said in the Oval Office “is not before the court.”

Judge lets Justice Department cut funding for legal education programs for people facing immigration court

A federal judge has allowed the U.S. Department of Justice to temporarily stop funding legal education programs for people facing deportation or immigration court while a lawsuit moves forward in court.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss in Washington, D.C., means a coalition of nonprofit groups that offer the education programs will lose their federal funding Wednesday, and possibly some access to potential clients inside detention centers.

Unlike criminal cases, people in immigration courts and detention centers do not have a right to an attorney if they cannot afford one themselves. Proponents of the legal education programs say they ease the burden on immigration judges and help immigrants navigate the complicated court system.

Congress allocates $29 million a year for the programs.

The Justice Department first instructed the nonprofits to stop work on the programs Jan. 22, citing an executive order targeting illegal immigration.

Judge blocks the freezing of billions in climate and infrastructure funding

A federal judge ordered several federal agencies to halt efforts to freeze billions of dollars meant to finance climate and infrastructure projects across the country.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, sided with conservation and nonprofit groups and issued a preliminary injunction until she rules on the merits of the lawsuit.

In her ruling, McElroy demanded that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of the Interior and the Agriculture Department end their practice of freezing, halting or pausing funding the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump hosts Navy football

The president welcomed the team to the White House on Tuesday in recognition of its defeat of Army and Air Force to win the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy last fall.

Trump introduced the Midshipmen’s coach and co-captains to deliver brief remarks, received a football and a ring from the team and invited them to tour the Oval Office.

It was the latest victory celebration hosted by Trump in recent days.

Income tax day is here, but Trump is unlikely to release his returns like most presidents before him have done

Trump interrupted that tradition in his first term, insisting he couldn’t release the returns because they were being audited. He held to that reasoning even after the IRS said taxpayers under audit are free to release their returns.

A White House spokesperson doubted that Trump would release his returns on Tuesday.

Trump’s immediate predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, released his income tax returns annually during his four-year term.

Representatives for Vice President JD Vance’s office did not respond to an email request for comment on whether he’s releasing his 2024 return.

The administration has repeatedly claimed it is the most transparent in history.

Washington mayor orders hiring and overtime freezes

Washington’s mayor ordered a freeze in hiring and overtime Tuesday and told staffers to prepare for potential facility closures.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s wide-ranging order comes as the capital looks to reconcile a $1.1 billion hole left in its budget last week when the House adjourned without addressing it.

The order also gives the city administrator until April 25 to present a plan for furloughing employees and closing facilities. Public schools and Department of Human Services shelters are listed as exempt, but police and fire stations are not.

“We’re concerned when people call 911, they won’t get the same level of help that they see now,” said David Hoagland, president of the D.C. firefighters union.

Agencies can seek waivers on a case-by-case basis.

Bowser said Monday that she notified Congress that the city was using federal law to increase its budget by 6%, which it can do without lawmakers’ approval.

Tariff confusion, rapid-fire orders and potential cuts are troubling Alaska Sen. Murkowski

The confusion over tariffs in the first months of the Trump administration, along with a head-spinning rash of executive orders and potential cuts to safety-net social programs, are exceptionally concerning, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.

“We are all afraid,” Murkowski said Monday at a leadership seminar for nonprofit and tribal representatives, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

The moderate Republican has been one of the few in the GOP to challenge both her party and the president when she felt it necessary, such as voting against Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary.

Murkowski criticized some of the administration’s approaches to implementing policy measures and service cuts, saying some were “unlawful.”

“It is as hard as anything I have been engaged in, in the 20-plus years I’ve been in the Senate,” Murkowski said.

Lawyers for Harvard in Trump administration dispute are no strangers to high-profile legal matters

The two attorneys representing Harvard University in a pitched fight with the Trump administration are no strangers to the spotlight or to Washington investigations that reach into the White House.

One of them, Robert Hur, was a senior Justice Department official during President Donald Trump’s first term and served for a time as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland. But he’s perhaps best known as the special counsel who investigated President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and produced a report that painted a damaging assessment of Biden’s mental acuity months before the Democrat dropped his bid for reelection.

The other, William Burck, has been a go-to attorney for Washington legal crises dating back years. A former lawyer in President George W. Bush’s White House, he represented multiple Trump associates during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and has more recently defended New York Mayor Eric Adams in a corruption case that was brought, and later dropped, by the Justice Department.

The involvement of the lawyers — both well-known in conservative legal circles and both selected in the past for prominent Trump orbit positions — is an interesting wrinkle to a hugely consequential dispute between the federal government and the country’s oldest and wealthiest university. The clash is shaping up to be a seminal moment in Trump’s ongoing efforts to bend elite universities to his will by threatening to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding if they don’t agree to major campus policy reforms.

▶ Read more about the lawyers and the issues at stake

‘The framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power’

A federal judge on Tuesday placed a hold on much of Trump’s order forbidding the federal government from doing business with anyone who hires the law firm Susman Godfrey, making it the fourth time a judge has found the president’s targeting of law firms is likely unconstitutional.

“The framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,” District Court Judge Loren AliKhan said as she entered the temporary restraining order on behalf of Susman, which represented a voting machine firm that won a $787 billion settlement from Fox News over its airing of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

Trump’s order cited the firm’s election work as a reason it was targeted. Several other firms that have been targeted by Trump entered into settlements, promising to provide hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free legal work for the president’s favored causes.

Susman and at least three others have chosen to fight and all have so far won in court.

Trump border czar not ready to comment on legality of sending Americans to El Salvador prison

Tom Homan told reporters he’d only gotten back to Washington on Monday and had yet to discuss the issue with the president.

Homan said he didn’t want to be “opining on something I really don’t have the information on.”

When he met in the Oval Office on Monday with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, Trump reiterated that he’d like to send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to the prison. Such a move likely would be illegal.

Key vaccine committee meets for the first time under RFK Jr.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a leading voice in the U.S. anti-vaccine movement.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ two-day meeting is taking up policy questions that had been put on hold when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly postponed the panel’s February meeting.

The committee is slated to vote Wednesday afternoon on whether to make new recommendations regarding three kinds of vaccines, including one for meningitis and another to prevent a mosquito-borne illness.

It seems likely those recommendations would fall to Kennedy to decide on.

US judge to question Trump officials’ refusal to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The administration has continued to refuse to retrieve Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison, even after the Supreme Court ordered his return to the U.S.

The 4 p.m. hearing in a U.S. District Court comes a day after White House advisers repeated the claim that they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country. The president of El Salvador also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.

▶ Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case

Federal judge bars Trump administration from taking action against student from India

The University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering student is slated to graduate in less than a month.

The order comes as the Trump administration is revoking the legal status of foreign students across the country with little notice.

The judge granted Krish Lal Isserdasani, 21, a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from revoking his student visa or detaining him.

U.S. District Judge William Conley wrote that Isserdasani “was given no warning, no opportunity to explain or defend himself, and no chance to correct any potential misunderstanding before his F-1 student visa record was terminated.”

The judge set a hearing for April 28, less than two weeks before Isserdasani is to graduate.

White House removes aging Kennedy magnolia tree from the Rose Garden due to safety concerns

The National Park Service, in a statement released by the White House, said the more than 60-year-old saucer magnolia was removed from the southwest corner of the garden last Saturday because its condition had steadily declined due to underlying soil issues and root disease.

Certified arborists had confirmed the tree had “entered a state of irreversible decline and needed to be removed for safety.”

The Kennedy magnolia was one of four planted in the corners of the Rose Garden during John F. Kennedy’s administration in March and April of 1962.

A new tree has taken its place.

Last week, a nearly 200-year-old magnolia tree at the south entrance to the White House that dated to Andrew Jackson’s presidency was removed for similar reasons.

NAACP sues Trump administration over efforts to limit diversity, equity and inclusion at schools

The lawsuit challenges actions by the Department of Education threatening federal funding for schools that don’t end DEI programs, saying the department is prohibiting legal efforts to give equal opportunity to Black students.

“In direct conflict with its mission, the Office for Civil Rights has baselessly characterized vital efforts to advance racial equality to themselves be racially discriminatory, thus weaponizing the anti-discrimination laws against the very communities they are meant to protect,” said Michaele N. Turnage Young, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of NAACP.

Visa revocations for international students pile up, with hundreds of students fearing deportation

At least 600 students at more than 90 colleges and universities around the U.S. have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press tally.

Advocacy groups collecting reports from colleges say hundreds more students could be caught up in the crackdown.

The speed and scope of the visa and status terminations have alarmed students, schools and immigration lawyers, who say they’ve been flooded with calls from panicked students. Some students have begun to challenge the terminations in court, with one student in New Hampshire granted a temporary restraining order.

▶ Read more about the student visa revocations

White House says ‘the ball is in China’s court’ on resolving tariffs and trade issues

President Trump imposed new tariffs of as much as 145% on Chinese goods on the premise that the taxes will generate new revenues, help reduce the federal budget deficit and force China to make concessions in talks. So far, the Chinese government has shown no willingness to back down by placing 125% tariffs on U.S. goods.

“The ball is in China’s court,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Tuesday’s news briefing. “China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them. There’s no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger. And China wants what we have, what every country wants ... the American consumer. Or to put it another way, they need our money.”