Supreme court orders Trump to return Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador to US – live
‘We’re in very good shape’: Trump dismisses tariff turmoil as ‘transition problems’
Donald Trump defended his tariff policies at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president said:
We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.
We’re doing, again, what we should have done many years ago. We let it get out of control, and we allowed some countries to get very big and very rich at our expense. And I’m not going to let that happen.
His comments come as former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy.
Key events
Summary
Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. And you can also follow along with our continuing coverage of the US’s tariffs announcement here. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
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During a cabinet meeting, Donald Trump defended his tariff policies, saying, “We’re in great shape,” while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president’s abrupt decision to postpone the implementation of “reciprocal” tariffs by 90 days sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Meanwhile, former treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the government can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his “beliefs”. In response to a judge’s request for evidence, the government submitted a two-page memo, in which it argues that the Trump administration may deport noncitizens whose “beliefs, statements or associations” represent a threat to US foreign policy interests. The memo was released the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement shared, and then deleted, a social media post saying that it is responsible for stopping illegal “ideas” from crossing the US border.
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The supreme court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by Ice agents on 12 March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation.
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A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can require all people in the country without authorization to register with the federal government. Also today, the Washington Post reported that the Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, and the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
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The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The decision would mark a major escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.
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House speaker, Mike Johnson, was finally successful in muscling through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan.
In the lastest struggle between state and federal officials, 16 states and Washington D.C. have sued the Trump administration to restore access to Covid-19 relief aid for schools. Last month, the Education Department announced that it would not honor an extended deadline for states to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of pandemic relief funding.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Manhattan, is led by New York state attorney general Letitia James and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. After the Education Department’s announcement, James said, New York state lost access to $134 million in funding.
In a new court filing, Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student detained by plainclothes immigration officials last month, says she’s experienced medical mistreatment since her arrest and detention, leading to four asthma attacks. Öztürk, who is 30-years-old and from Turkey, says prior to her detention she’d had 13 asthma attacks in her life.
While experiencing her second asthma attack since the arrest, she says, a Louisiana detention center nurse told her “you need to take that thing off your head” and then removed Öztürk’s hijab without her permission. The nurse eventually gave Öztürk “a few ibuprofen”, she says. While experiencing for a third asthma attack, Öztürk says, a nurse “told me that it was all in my mind”.
Here’s more on Öztürk’s case:
As markets open in Asia Friday morning, stocks are down once again, suggesting investors’ concerns about Donald Trump’s tariffs are still driving the market. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is down 5% while South Korea’s Kospi index has dropped 1.6%. Meanwhile, in Australia, the ASX 200 has fallen 2.3%.
In a social media post this evening, Donald Trump has said that he may consider tariffs or sanctions on Mexico if the country does not give Texas water he says it owes the state under a 1944 treaty.
“Mexico OWES Texas 1.3 million acre-feet of water under the 1944 Water Treaty, but Mexico is unfortunately violating their Treaty obligation,” Trump posted on Truth Social. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1ft.
“My Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, is standing up for Texas Farmers, and we will keep escalating consequences, including TARIFFS and, maybe even SANCTIONS, until Mexico honors the Treaty, and GIVES TEXAS THE WATER THEY ARE OWED!,” he said.
Under the terms of the 81-year-old treaty, Mexico must send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the United States every five years in exchange for water from the Colorado River. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, Mexico has sent less than 30% of the water required this five-year cycle.
In response, the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum wrote that her administration has sent a proposal detailing a solution to the state department. “I am sure, like with other issues, an agreement will be reached,” she said.
“There have been three years of drought and to the extent that water has been available, Mexico has complied,” Sheinbaum added.
Here’s more about the ongoing dispute:
Donald Trump has reacted to the New York helicopter crash that killed six earlier today, calling it “terrible” and saying his transportation secretary is “on it”.
“Looks like six people, the pilot, two adults, and three children, are no longer with us,” he wrote in a social media post. “Announcements as to exactly what took place, and how, will be made shortly!”
My colleagues, Joanna Walters, Marina Dunbar and Maanvi Singh have more:
The Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, the Washington Post reports. The outlet cited four people familiar with the situation and records that showed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem making the request.
The news comes just hours after the New York Times reported earlier today that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
Gabrielle Canon
Letters went out to hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) today informing them their jobs had been terminated – again.
The probationary employees, many who performed important roles at the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency have spent weeks in limbo after being dismissed in late February, only to be rehired and put on administrative leave in mid-March following a federal court order.
“Well after about 3 weeks of reinstatement, I, along with other probationary employees at NOAA, officially got “re-fired” today (6 weeks after the original firing) after a temporary restraining order was lifted by an appeals court earlier this week,” Dr Andy Hazelton, a scientist who worked on hurricane modeling at Noaa posted on X. “What a wild and silly process this has been.”
On Tuesday, the US supreme court struck down that order on a technicality, ruling that the non-profit groups who sued on behalf of the workers did not have legal standing. It’s one of several wins the highest court has granted to the Trump administration after federal judges ruled against him, including allowing deportations to continue and enabling a freeze of roughly $65m in grants for teacher training.
The letters, reviewed by the Guardian, were signed by John Guenther, acting general counsel of the US Department of Commerce, and consisted of two simple paragraphs: one reiterating that employees were reinstated and put in non-duty paid status, and a second explaining that the temporary restraining order protecting their jobs was no longer in effect.
“Accordingly, the Department is reverting your termination action to its original effective date,” Guenther wrote, adding that fired employees wouldn’t receive any pay beyond their termination date.
The impact from these firings is expected to have far-reaching effects, hampering the agency’s work to provide essential climate and weather intel. Meanwhile, the agency is bracing for the next rounds of cuts as leaders make moves to comply with Trump’s “reduction in force”, an order that will cull 1,029 more positions.
While the losses are expected to have a profound impact on the American public, the impact will be felt globally too. Scientists and forecasters around the world depend on Noaa satellites, studies, and intel, including data sharing that tracks severe weather across Europe, coordination for disaster response in the Caribbean, and monitoring deforestation and the effects of the climate crisis in the Amazon Rainforest.
Vital work has slowed or stopped as teams try to navigate the chaos, along with the threat of severe budget cuts and political restrictions.
The official terminations also came just days after the White House pulled funding for the national climate assessment, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.
The crackdown on climate science comes as the dangers from extreme weather events and deadly billion-dollar disasters continue to rise. Experts say these cuts, which will do little to limit the federal government’s budget, will only add to the threats.
Among 800 positions cut were workers who track El Niño-La Niña weather patterns around the world, people who model severe storm risks, and scientists contributing to global understanding of what could happen as the world warms.
In an interview with the Guardian last month, Hazelton said the firings across the agency and the pressures felt by those still there will affect the outcome of the work.
“It’s going to create problems across the board,” he said, adding that people are going to do their best but it will be a lot harder to achieve the mission. “It may be a slow process but the forecasts are going to suffer and as a result people will suffer.”
Anna Betts
Abrego Garcia, who has had protected legal status since 2019, is currently detained at Cecot, the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, after he was deported by the Trump administration on 15 March.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys has previously told the court that Ice had initially attempted to deport him in 2019. At the time, immigration officials claimed that a confidential informant had told them that Abrego Garcia “was an active member of the criminal gang MS-13”, an accusation that he has denied.
That year, Abrego Garcia contested the claims and efforts to deport him and filed an application for asylum.
According to a court filing, Abrego Garcia was granted “withholding of removal to El Salvador” by an immigration judge in October 2019, a protected status that prevents an individual being returned to their home country if they can show that there’s a “more likely than not” risk that they will be harmed.
But last month, on 12 March, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say that he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who they say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in the filing that “Ice was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador”.
US district Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia returned to the United States by midnight on Monday. Chief Justice John Roberts paused Xinis’ order to give the court time to weigh the issue.
That deadline has now passed and the justices directed the judge to clarify her order, which called on the administration to “faciliate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The high court also said the administration should be prepared to share what steps it already has taken and what it still might do.
Supreme court orders Trump officials to facilitate return of Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador
The US supreme court has told the Trump administration it must facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by Ice agents on 12 March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members. His family sued the administration over his deportation.
The justice department argued while Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”, his actual removal “was not error”. But officials have now been told they must ensure they handle Garcia’s return as though he hadn’t been improperly sent to El Salvador.
BREAKING: the Supreme Court orders the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abredo Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly sent to El Salvador. pic.twitter.com/X8Fq5mAFoH
— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) April 10, 2025
Following last week’s news that the Trump administration cut 85% of the National Endowment for the Humanities’s grants, it appears some of that funding may be redirected to build Donald Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes”, the New York Times reports. Trump has floated a proposal for the sculpture garden since 2020, as a symbolic celebration of patriotic Americans.
The Senate is poised to vote overnight to confirm Donald Trump’s pick for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CNN reports.
The vote will likely occur early Friday morning. Trump’s pick for the role, Air Force Lt Gen Dan “Razin” Caine, has received bipartisan support from the Senate armed services committee.
Nearly 1,000 international students and scholars have had their visas revoked or academic records terminated since mid-March. The Washington-DC based NAFSA: Association of International Educators says that it has been collecting reports in the month since immigration officials ramped up their efforts to detain or deny entry to international students and professors.
“There is no clear pattern or trend in the nationalities of the affected students,” it reports.
