What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.
This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.
Administration Live Updates: Trump Appeals Ruling That Orders Fast and Full SNAP Payments
The Trump administration had been ordered to fund this month’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by the end of Friday.Doug Mills/The New York Times
"Where Things Stand
Food stamps:The administration asked an appeals court on Friday to immediately halt a judge’s ruling that would require the government to fully fund food stamps. Theruling saidthat this month’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for roughly 42 million Americans must be funded by the end of the day.Read more ›
Trump and Orban:President Trump and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary are set to meet on Friday. The two have found common ground over their differences with European allies on Russia’s war in Ukraine, but U.S. sanctions on Moscow risk straining their chummy relationship.Read more ›
Travel disruptions:Airlines canceled hundreds of U.S. flights on Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered cuts to air traffic, which officials say were brought on by the government shutdown. This is affecting major airports across the country, including in New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles.Follow live ›
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, provides aid to about one in eight Americans.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
The Trump administration moved on Friday to deny swift and full food stamp payments to millions of low-income Americans, as it asked a federal appeals court to halt a judge’s recent order that would preserve those benefits during the shutdown.
The legal salvo once again plunged the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, into confusion and chaos — and raised the possibility that the poorest familiesmay receive no aidwhile the fiscal stalemate in Washington remains unresolved.
Nov. 7, 2025, 9:07 a.m. ET
The Trump administration asked an appeals court on Friday to immediately halta judge’s recent rulingthat would require the government to pay food stamps in full.
President Trump and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary at a meeting in the Oval Office in 2019.Doug Mills/The New York Times
On the surface,the meeting on Friday between President Trump and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary promises to be amutual admiration summitbetween two leaders who have found common ground over their differences with European allies on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
ButU.S. sanctions imposed last month on Russia’s two largest energy companiesover the war are a sticking point. Hungary gets much of its energy from Russia and Mr. Orban says that the penalties are threatening his country’s sluggish economy as he faces one of the toughest re-election battles of his career.
Tours of the Capitol remained paused as the government shutdown entered its 37th day on Capitol Hill on Thursday.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
President Trump and congressional Republicans calculated at the start of the government shutdown that they would avoid negotiations with Democrats, let the public pressure build and then watch them fold.
More than a month in, that strategy appears to have been a miscalculation.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, provides aid to about one in eight Americans.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to fund food stamps in full for roughly 42 million low-income Americans, after admonishing the government for delaying aid under the nation’s largest anti-hunger program during the shutdown.
But the Justice Department almost immediately told the court that it would appeal the ruling. The move renewed fears that the poorest Americans would not receive their full benefits to purchase groceries this month, leaving many at risk of imminent and severe financial hardship."
‘Broken My Hope’: Trump’s Move to Slash Refugee Arrivals Ricochets Widely
"President Trump’s policy has shut the door on all but a tiny fraction of people across the world seeking refuge in the United States from conflict, persecution or both.
An aerial view of a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in March. Under new Trump administration rules, far fewer refugees will have the chance to resettle in the United States.Mahmud Hossain Opu/Associated Press
Mohammed Faisal sold his computer shop and graphic design business that he had scraped together in the refugee camp in Bangladesh. He even sold his tarpaulin shelter to raise money to move to America.
He told his three sons, born like him in exile, that they would soon be citizens of a country composed of immigrants.
He was wrong. Mr. Faisal, a member of the Rohingya Muslim minority whose violent expulsion from Myanmar has beenlabeled a genocideby the United States, has been stymied by a series of actions by President Trump that have shut the door on almost all refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States.
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump announced a pause in refugee admissions. In his latest move, a federal notice was posted last week announcing that the United States wouldaccept no more than 7,500 refugeesfrom across the world for the fiscal year that started in October. The previous period’s ceiling, set by the Biden administration, was 125,000.
The new cap is the lowest in the history of thedecades-old refugee program, and it was made official without consulting Congress.
The federal notice specified that future refugee resettlement will prioritize a white South African group called Afrikaners, as well as “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.” The South African government has disputed that Afrikaners face such persecution.
A group of white South African refugees arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia in May.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
In recent years, most of the refugees accepted by the United States have come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Syria and Myanmar, all places that have endured conflict or major social upheaval.
Mr. Faisal, who learned his fluent English from classes held in dirt-floor tents and from movies like “Titanic” and “The Terminator,” had been on the cusp of resettling in America when Mr. Trump returned to office in January. His years of immigration paperwork are now paused.
“The U.S.A. is my dream country,” Mr. Faisal, 31, said. “The U.S.A. is a country of immigrants who work hard, and I want to work hard.”
The news of the slashed cap has crushed him, Mr. Faisal said, his voice wracked with sobs.
“I have sold everything,” he said. “I have nothing.”
Mr. Faisal and his family are living with his sister and her family in a single tent. It is too many people for one shelter, he said.
In Thailand, where refugee camps for other ethnic minorities from Myanmar have been open for decades, the number of people who left for the United States in fiscal 2025 was just 465, despite a recently launched program that was supposed to significantly increase emigration to America. A year earlier, more than 7,300 Myanmar refugees were granted entry to the United States, just a couple hundred fewer than the new worldwide quota.
Conflict in Myanmar has pushed a new generation of displaced people across the country’s borders.Somrerk Kosolwitthayanant/EPA, via Shutterstock
Apart from ethnic-cleansing campaigns, Myanmar has been engulfed bycivil war, following a military coup in 2021.
Daw May Hnin’s son got a student visa to study international relations in the United States three years ago, then applied for asylum when the Myanmar junta began to draft young people to fight in the civil war. She had hoped to join him in Minnesota, but in June Myanmar was put on thelist of countries bound by a travel banbecause of the high number of its citizens who overstayed their American visas. She cried when she learned of the 7,500-person limit, Ms. May Hnin said, wondering if she would ever see her son again.
“I know countries have their limits, but for a mother like me, this isn’t about politics,” she said. “It’s about love, family and the chance to be whole again.”
For others, the United States is the reason they need to flee their homeland. After the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans who were associated with the previous American-backed authority were granted so-called special immigrant visas. But many have yet to reach the United States. The new cap has left them in despair.
“This decision by Trump has broken my hope,” said Saboor, a former supervisor for a U.S. program in Afghanistan.
Mr. Saboor is being identified by only one name because of security concerns. Human rights groups say that people like him who remain in Afghanistan face arrest and abuse by the Taliban, even torture and death.
In 2024, roughly 3,100 Afghan refugees were resettled in the United States each month. From January to May of this year, those arrivals plummeted by nearly two-thirds.
In July, the Trump administration withdrew humanitarian protections for Afghans already resettled in the United States, citing Afghanistan’s“improved security situation and its stabilizing economy.”The removal of their “temporary protected status” could lead to deportations of Afghans to a country where they almost assuredly will face reprisals.
Despite the bleak prospects, Mr. Faisal, the refugee in Bangladesh, said that the election of Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim American immigrant, as mayor of New York City on Tuesday gave him hope that his dreams of emigrating to the U.S. might still one day come true.
“Inshallah,” he said.
Yaqoob Akbarycontributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, andElian Peltierfrom Islamabad, Pakistan.
Hannah Beech is a Times reporter based in Bangkok who has been covering Asia for more than 25 years. She focuses on in-depth and investigative stories."
Detained migrants are led to a holding room on the 10th floor of the Jacob K Javits federal building for holding in New York on 10 July 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters
US immigration officials have been increasingly detaining people in small, secretive holding facilities for days or even weeks at a time in violation of federal policy, a Guardian investigation has found.
These holding facilities – located at ICE offices, in federal buildings and other locations around the country – are typically used to detain people after they have been arrested but before they are transferred or released. In many cases, they consist of small concrete rooms with no beds and are designed to only be used for a few hours.
Previously, ICE was prohibited by its own internal policies from detaining people for longer than 12 hours in these holding facilities. But in a June memo, the agency waived the 12-hour rule, saying people recently arrested by ICE can be detained in the holding rooms for up to three days.
There is extremely limited oversight of ICE holding facilities nationwide, leading to concern among advocates about unknown troubling conditions inside.
The Guardian analyzed data on ICE holding facility book-ins, first published by the Deportation Data Project, that cover a period from September 2023 until late July of this year, the most recent month for which it is available.
The Guardian’s analysis found that:
ICE has used at least 170 ICE holding facilities nationwide, including at 25 ICE field offices.
The Trump administration and its campaign of mass deportation has led to a near across the board increase in the time people are forced to spend in detention in holding rooms. After Donald Trump’s inauguration, the average time that people spend in detention increased at 127 hold rooms across the country.
Despite ICE’s rule change in June, the agency is continuing to violate its own policy by detaining people at these sites for multiple days at a time.
In some cases, such as a New York City holding facility located on the 10th floor of a federal building in downtown Manhattan, time in detention increased by nearly 600% on average after the June rule change.
In one case the Guardian discovered by looking through agency data, ICE documented that a 62-year-old man was held inside that same New York City holding facility for two and a half months.
The Guardian also found an additional 63 people at the site who were held there for longer than one week, between Trump’s inauguration and late July.
Across the country, ICE has been criticized for its use of holding facilities, which are not subjected to traditional audits, inspections and general oversight that larger ICE detention centers are required to face.
Now, advocates and former ICE officials are sounding the alarm that their extended use puts people in unsafe conditions, raises the risk of abuse and medical neglect, and violates due process rights. The facilities are secretive and face minimal oversight, and detainees have very little contact with family members or attorneys.
The Guardian sent a detailed request for comment to the DHS and ICE. ICE responded by requesting an extension to the deadline in order to provide the Guardian “the information needed to ensure a factual story”. Despite that communication, neither the DHS nor ICE provided a comment in time for publication.
In various instances, including in court records and when members of Congress have attempted to visit holding facilities, homeland security officials have said holding rooms are not detention centers, so they are not subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as other ICE facilities. In August, the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, said ICE does not detain immigrants in field offices, some of which contain holding facilities, and instead say they are offices where people are processed.
However, former agency officials with extensive knowledge of conditions inside holding facilities have expressed concern at their prolonged use.
“People were not supposed to spend more than 12 hours in there,” said a former ICE official, who worked on oversight and detention issues and who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. “I actually think it’s wildly, wildly fucked up.”
The former official said that the risk of people experiencing sexual abuse or assault while in a holding room – either from ICE staff or fellow detainees – increases the longer they are held. “You’re just putting them all in there with minimal oversight,” the former official added.
An overcrowded system
People are typically taken to holding facilities after being arrested by ICE or its partner agencies, or while they are awaiting transfer to courts, detention centers or other detention spaces.
As arrests surge amid the Trump administration’s widespread immigration crackdown, officials are continuing to skirt the law by detaining people for longer than legally allowed in holding facilities. Officials are arresting more people, leading to a backlog of people to process, while they increasingly rely on the network of holding facilities. A backlogged court system and overfilled detention centers mean people are being held here longer and longer.
Federal immigration officers detain a family after departing from their hearing at immigration court in New York on 22 October 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters
A data analysis from the Guardian shows that in major holding facilities throughout the country, immigration officials were already detaining people for multiple days at a time even before the memo was signed.
Advocates say ICE’s June policy change was made in an effort to move the legal goalposts and lessen any potential ramifications from the agency’s nationwide crisis of overcapacity at holding facilities, as officials have rounded up hundreds of thousands of people in its dragnet.
Language in the ICE memo supports that claim, reading that the rule was changed in order to “avoid violation of holding facility standards and requirements”, among other reasons.
Despite the rule change, however, court records, interviews and arrest data show ICE has been detaining people for longer than the three-day limit, in violation of its new policy. In the New York City holding facility, for example, located on the 10th floor of a federal building in downtown Manhattan, the average time of people detained in the hold rooms increased by nearly 600% after the June memo was signed.
The ICE official who signed the memo, which was first included as an attachment in a federal court filing in a New York-based lawsuit against ICE, justified the policy change by pointing to the major increase in immigration-related arrests by the Trump administration.
“This is ICE trying to give themselves a buffer to keep holding people in conditions they know are unsafe,” said Amelia Dagen, a senior attorney with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. “They are giving themselves an ‘out’, legally, through the waiver.”
A lack of oversight and troubling conditions
ICE’s holding facilities have come under increased scrutiny this year, as the Trump administration aggressively escalates immigration enforcement operations.
While larger immigration detention facilities are subject to oversight mechanisms, holding facilities are not because they are supposed to only be used for limited time. Attorneys are not allowed into the holding facilities; ICE’s detention standards do not apply to them; it is unknown whether homeland security watchdog agencies, like the inspector general’s office, conduct site audits at the holding facilities; and some members of Congress, who have attempted to enter the facilities to conduct congressionally mandated inspections, have been prevented from doing so because ICE says they are not traditional detention centers.ICE has conducted sexual assault audits in holding facilities in the past, but has not published a single audit since late 2024.
The DHS inspector general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
“There is a total lack of oversight,” said Paige Austin, supervising litigation attorney at Make the Road New York, a non-profit organization that sued ICE for its use of the New York City holding facility. “The lack of communication and lack of access to counsel for people in these sites is a way of preventing oversight, transparency and accountability.”
Austin added that when Make the Road New York and other organizations sued ICE, the agency did not acknowledge any oversight taking place in holding facilities.
Representative Dan Goldman walks past federal immigration officers waiting for respondents to depart from their hearings to conduct targeted detainments at immigration court in New York on 23 October 2025. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters
Holding facilities throughout the country, used to detain men, women and children, are designed only to temporarily detain people while they process their arrest. The rooms are in many cases small,concrete-only spaces with benches, sinks and toilets lacking privacy, where multiple people are detained at once.
People detained have complained of lights being constantly on, depriving them of sleep. They also have extremely limited contact with the outside world, including with attorneys and family members.
There is a shocking lack of oversight and ICE has put forward its own inconsistent statements about conditions, but news reports, court records and leaked videos have offered some troubling glimpses into these facilities.
In June, the Guardian reported on a Los Angeles ICE holding facility in a building’s basement, where people, including families with children, were held for dayswith little food or water. A recent report from the Times of San Diego said people had been held inside an ICE holding facility in the basement of a courthouse. And a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution alleged people have been held for long periods of time inside an ICE holding facility in the basement of the agency’s own offices.
Few external observers have seen conditions inside holding facilities, but in July, the New York Immigrant Coalition published a video from inside the New York City holding facility that had been surreptitiously recorded by a detained man. The video showed more than 20 people in a brightly lit room, standing around, lying on the concrete floor or sitting on concrete benches with foil blankets. Two toilets are seen in the video, partitioned from the rest of the room by a short wall.
Footage reveals harsh conditions inside Ice’s New York City confinement centre – video
According to court declarations reviewed by the Guardian in a New York-based federal lawsuit against ICE, people have been held at the New York City holding facility for multiple days at a time. One person was held there for five days, another for eight, another for 10 and one person for more than two weeks.
“We spoke with multiple people who had been in there for more than a week, more than 10 days – in the same clothes, not having bathed and no access to toothbrushes,” said Austin.
In mid-September, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to improve conditions for detained migrants at the holding facility. ICE began providing sleeping mats, three meals and toothbrushes in response to the court’s order, according to Austin. The judge also required that people detained by ICE be given the opportunity to consult with their attorneys.
‘A problem of ICE’s own making’
In Baltimore, a similar case is playing out in the Maryland federal court.
Located on the sixth floor of the George H Fallon federal building, the Baltimore holding facility has five cells, total, with the three largest cells having the capacity to detain up to 35 people each. It has faced accusations of medical neglect and overcrowding, according to a lawsuit filed in a Maryland federal court. The Trump administration attempted to dismiss that lawsuit by saying that the detained immigrants who sued had already been transferred out, so the Maryland federal court had no legal jurisdiction.
According to Dagen, who is on the legal team litigating the Baltimore holding facility lawsuit against ICE, attorneys are particularly concerned about medical care in the facility.
“We have found out – through the course of this litigation – that there is no one who is a licensed medical practitioner, in any way shape or form,” Dagen said. “No nurse, no doctor on-site to assess people for the need to go to the hospital if they are having some sort of medical issue.”
In response to public criticism, ICE in mid-March began providing air mattresses to detained immigrants in Baltimore. However, court records hint at inconsistent statements from ICE: during litigation, ICE officials told the court that they were providing pre-made and ready-to-eat meals to detained immigrants inside the holding rooms. But when attorneys received a first batch of discovery documents from ICE as part of their lawsuit, they discovered supermarket receipts instead. ICE, attorneys speculate, had been making sandwiches for detained people, not the full, ready-to-eat meals like they had originally claimed.
Demonstrators gather outside of the George H Fallon federal building on 18 March 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph: Michael A McCoy for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Due to heightened pressure on ICE, members of Congress throughout the country have attempted to enter ICE field offices with holding facilities. After much prodding, some members of Congress have been able to visit select holding facilities including the one in Baltimore.
But according to a separate lawsuit filed against ICE in Washington DC, lawmakers have been denied entry into the New York City, Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Washington ICE field offices for oversight inspections. Those facilities all detain people recently arrested by ICE.
The government shutdown is further preventing congressional oversight into holding facilities. Recent courtfilings by the Trump administration say that due to the lapse in federal funding, a certain oversight rule has been overridden, preventing members of Congress from inspecting holding and ICE detention centers overall.
This is a problem of “ICE’s own making”, Dagen added. “They are imposing their own arrest quotas on themselves that are unrealistic and absolutely arbitrary, and then trying to meet those quotas, while fully knowing they don’t have the ability to hold people in conditions that are safe and constitutional.”
Supreme Court Confronts Trump and His Tariffs in Test of Presidential Power
"The justices face a so-called legitimacy dilemma as they deal with a tricky legal dispute and a president who has made clear he would view defeat as a personal insult.
Experts say the case is a tossup that poses difficult considerations for the justices, made all the more tense by President Trump’s efforts to personalize the dispute.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Again and again since President Trump returned to the White House, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has blessed his boundary-pushing policies, allowing them to take effect on an interim basis while litigation plays out in the lower courts.
But on Wednesday, the justices will consider for the first time whether to say “no” to Mr. Trump in a lasting way.
At issue is the legality of his signature economic policy: the use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner. The outcome of the case could significantly affect the global economy, American businesses and consumers.
Experts say the case is a tossup that poses difficult legal and political considerations for the justices, made all the more tense by Mr. Trump’s efforts to personalize the dispute.
Mr. Trump hadmused about attending the court’s argumentthis week, and has spoken repeatedly of the case’s importance to him. On Sunday, he said he decided against going to court, but stressed that he considered the stakes to be monumental.
The case “is one of the most important in the history of the country,” Mr. Trump wrote in apost on Truth Social. “If a president was not able to quickly and nimbly use the power of tariffs, we would be defenseless, leading perhaps even to the ruination of our nation.”
Observers of the court said the justices would be keenly aware that Mr. Trump would perceive a legal defeat as a personal blow.
“You can’t help but think that that’s going to be hovering over the decision-making process in this case,” said Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who was the solicitor general during the Obama administration.
The Supreme Court’s six conservative justices have so far been receptive to Mr. Trump’s claims of presidential authority. Among other things, they have allowed the administration to withhold funds appropriated by Congress, kick transgender troops out of the military and pursue aggressive immigration-related policies — but all on a temporary, emergency basis.
The tariffs case is the first time the justices have weighed the underlying legal merits of a key administration priority in Mr. Trump’s second term.
Other such cases are on the horizon. Next month, the court will consider Mr. Trump’s efforts to seize control of independent agencies. And in January, the justices will weigh his attempt to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board. The administration has also asked them to consider the legality of the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.
Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former top Justice Department lawyer under George W. Bush, said that because the legal issues were so closely contested in the tariffs matter, some justices could weigh broader implications across the set of presidential cases, concerned about either handing Mr. Trump too much power — or too many defeats.
“At the end of this term, we’ll see wins and losses for Trump on presidential power,” he said. “This is the case I think is the closest, so I don’t know which way it will cut.”
In a sign that the court recognizes the importance of the tariffs case, the justices set a brisk schedule for the parties to submit written briefs and present oral arguments. They now seem likely to rule swiftly rather than wait until the end of the term next summer, as is their usual practice for the most consequential decisions.
The case has divided the conservative legal community.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes. But soon after taking office, Mr. Trump declared that a 1977 law gave him the power to impose tariffs unilaterally during emergencies.
He used the statute to announce tariffs on goods imported into the United States from China, Canada and Mexico, saying the levies were a punishment for failing to stop the flow of fentanyl. In April, he again relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act when he announced tariffs onimports from more than 100 trading partners, saying they were needed to address trade deficits with the rest of the world.
The administration’s on-again, off-again taxes on imports have roiled small businesses, prompting lawsuits from state officials and six companies, including the wine importer V.O.S. Selections and the toy manufacturer Learning Resources, whose cases are before the court on Wednesday. Mr. Trump’s actions, they say, were unlawful, cut into their profits and forced them to lay off employees and raise prices.
The 1977 statute gives the president certain tools to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to “the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.” That includes the power to “regulate” imports.
The president’s lawyers say that language gives him broad authority to impose tariffs when he believes an emergency exists.
But the law does not mention the words “tariffs,” “taxes” or “duties.” If the word “regulate” meant “tax,” the small businesses told the court, the president “could tax everything from autos to zoos.”
From the start, the administration has insisted that the consequences for the country are too significant for the court to resist Mr. Trump. They say that rolling back the tariffs — and potentially refunding money already collected — could lead to economic ruin akin to the Great Depression, an interruption of trade negotiations and diplomatic embarrassment.
“I think the more deals we’ve done, the more money coming in, it gets harder and harder for SCOTUS to rule against us,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessentsaid in August, using an acronym for the Supreme Court.
Butprominent legal figuresopposed to the tariffs, including retired federal judges and a founder of the conservative Federalist Society, said the case was not a close call. While past presidents have invoked the emergency statute to impose sanctions or to freeze a country’s assets, Mr. Trump is the first in 50 years to rely on it to impose tariffs.
“Emergency powers are meant to be used in emergencies,” said Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge nominated by President George W. Bush, who is leading the coalition of small businesses. “No Supreme Court would want to provoke a confrontation with a president of the United States unnecessarily, but on the other hand, the law is the law.”
The president’s order argued that the tariffs were needed as a response to “large and persistent” trade deficits.
Tara Leigh Grove, a University of Texas at Austin law professor, said the justices could find it a stretch to characterize longstanding trade deficits as an emergency. On the other hand, she said, the statute is broad and appears to give a president a lot of discretion.
“The justices will be struggling with whether they want to second-guess any presidential decision about an emergency,” she said.
The case will also force the justices to address two doctrines favored by the conservative legal movement, both of which appear to work against the president’s claims. The “major questions doctrine” says Congress must use clear language to authorize executive actions that could transform the economy. The Supreme Court relied on the doctrine to invalidate many of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s key initiatives, including his student loan forgiveness program.
The other — the “nondelegation doctrine” — says that Congress cannot transfer unlimited legislative powers — like its taxing authority — to the executive branch.
D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, said the president’s use of the statute to impose tariffs was not an unlimited delegation of power. The law requires declared emergencies to expire in a year and reporting to Congress about the tools used in the meantime. Even so, he said the president’s power to declare an emergency was not subject to review by the courts.
“Judges lack the institutional competence to determine when foreign affairs pose an unusual and extraordinary threat that requires an emergency response,” he wrote in a court filing.
Mr. Sauer also pointed to a recent concurring opinion from Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in another case that suggested the two doctrines play little to no role in the context of national security and foreign policy emergencies.
The challenges to Mr. Trump’s tariffs reached the Supreme Court after judges in three different lower courts ruled against the administration but allowed the import taxes to remain in effect while litigation continued.
In a 7-to-4 ruling in late August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the emergency statute did not authorize “tariffs of the magnitude” the president announced.
“Whenever Congress intends to delegate to the president the authority to impose tariffs, it does so explicitly,” the majority said, declining to decide whether the statute might allow Mr. Trump to impose more limited tariffs.
The appeals court did not divide along ideological lines. Close observers of the court have pointed to a dissenting opinion from Judge Richard G. Taranto, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, as a possible guidepost for the Supreme Court’s conservatives, should they back Mr. Trump.
Judge Taranto argued that Congress intentionally used broad language to give presidents flexibility, embodying “an eyes-open congressional grant of broad emergency authority in this foreign affairs realm.”
Mr. Sauer referred to Judge Taranto’s dissent 10 times in his filing.
Professor Grove said the Supreme Court would face what she described as “legitimacy dilemma” as they weigh the implications of their decision for the president’s legacy and the economy.
The court’s authority and reputation depend on setting aside political considerations and focusing on the law. At the same time, the justices cannot ignore public pressures and perceptions.
“No matter what they do in this case, it will be painted as political,” Professor Grove said.
Had Mr. Trump shown up in the courtroom on Wednesday, he would have been the first sitting president to attend oral arguments.
Trump’s presence would have raised the stakes further, creating an awkward environment during typically staid oral arguments.
“I doubt the court wants to be perceived as bowing down to him,” Professor Goldsmith said. If he did attend, “it’s just going to make it harder for them to rule for him.”
Instead, the president said in his social media post Sunday that he did “not want to distract from the importance of this decision,” adding that if the court rules against him, “our country could be reduced to almost third world status — pray to God that that doesn’t happen!”
Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington."
