
Top federal labor officials reinstated by full DC federal appeals court
CNN
Two former top federal labor protection officials were reinstated to their posts Monday by the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals – at least for now – amid a lengthy legal dispute over President Donald Trump’s ability to fire leaders from independent government agencies.
Two former top federal labor protection officials were reinstated to their posts Monday by the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals – at least for now – amid a lengthy legal dispute over President Donald Trump’s ability to fire leaders from independent government agencies. In a 7-4 decision, the full appeals court wiped away a previous ruling from a three-judge panel that allowed Trump to fire the officials: Cathy Harris, the chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews federal firings and can reinstate wrongly terminated employees, and Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board. With these two officials returning to their posts, a quorum has now been restored at the NLRB and MSPB, allowing them to function at full strength and process cases involving federal employment disputes. These agencies are a critical bulwark against Trump’s efforts to rapidly reduce the size of the federal workforce and fire thousands of employees. Both officials are Democrats appointed by former President Joe Biden whose statutory terms weren’t set to expire for years. Federal law says they can only be dismissed for cause, but Trump is trying to fire them anyway, and the Justice Department has argued that it’s unconstitutional to restrain the president’s firing powers. This is not the final say in the matter, which many legal observers believe is eventually headed to the Supreme Court. The full DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday wiped away an emergency order from the three-judge panel letting Trump fire the officials while the appeals play out. But a smaller three-judge panel is still set to review the underlying merits of the case, and a hearing is scheduled for May 16.

Hundreds of Border Patrol officers are mobilizing to bolster the president’s crackdown on immigration in snowy Minneapolis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday, as tensions between federal law enforcement and local counterparts flare after an ICE-involved shooting last week left a mother of three dead.

Nationwide outcry over the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent spilled into the streets of cities across the US on Saturday, with protesters demanding the removal of federal immigration authorities from their communities and justice for the slain Renee Good.

Since early December the US Coast Guard and other military branches have boarded and taken control of five oil ships that had previously been sanctioned, all either accused of being in the process of transporting Venezuelan oil or on their way to take on oil that has been subject to US sanctions since President Donald Trump began a pressure campaign against the leadership of the country during his first term.










