Constitution? What Constitution
Trump’s mass deportation plan could sideline immigrants’ constitutional right to due process.
President Donald Trump says that fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to rapidly carry out mass deportations may take precedence over giving immigrants the right to due process under the Constitution, as required by courts. A central part of Trump’s agenda has been implementing the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, as he vowed during the 2024 campaign. In service of that goal, his administration has pressed the courts to allow the immediate removal of immigrants it accuses of being members of a Venezuelan gang, without giving them a chance to plead their case before a judge. In an interview last month with “Meet the Press,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Yes, of course,” when asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process. Trump, however, isn’t so sure. “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether he agreed with Rubio. His comments came during a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which aired Sunday. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”; it does not say that person must be a U.S. citizen, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights. Trump has also said that while “we always have to obey the laws,” he would like to see some “homegrown criminals” sent to El Salvador as well, a proposal that was widely panned by legal experts. When Welker tried to point out what the Fifth Amendment said, Trump suggested that such a process would slow him down too much - NBC
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will pay an official visit to Russia from May 7–10, the Kremlin confirmed Sunday. Xi was already among the leaders set to attend the Victory Day Parade in Moscow on May 9. The Kremlin said Xi was visiting at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, as well as taking part in Victory Day celebrations, the leaders would discuss “further development of relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction” and “issues on the international and regional agenda.” Putin and Xi will sign a number of bilateral documents, it said. Xi’s visit to Russia will be his third since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for weapons production. Xi last visited Russia in September 2024 for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies. He also paid a state visit to Russia in March 2023 and Putin reciprocated with his own trip to China in October that year. The two leaders have since also met in Beijing in May 2024, where Putin took the first foreign trip of his fifth presidential term, and in Kazakhstan in July - AP
Nationalist candidate George Simion won the first round of Romania’s presidential election with some 40.1% of the vote, according to the preliminary results on Sunday. In a late-night political thriller, the official count saw the outsider independent candidate Nicușor Dan come into second place and the run-off, leapfrogging the big-tent coalition candidate Crin Antonescu — a result shocking the traditional political establishment in the EU and NATO member state. The Simion vs Dan head-to-head is so unexpected that no one would have dared predict it six months ago. Pre-election polls all favoured Simion to win the first round. However, the result by Dan, the mayor of Bucharest, sent a clear message to the ruling coalition, which got together to nominate Antonescu as the main party’s candidate. Romania now faces a tough battle in the second round in two weeks, where it will have to choose between an inward, nationalist candidate and a pro-EU and pro-NATO one. After the initial exit polls showed Simion in the lead on Sunday, most party leaders and candidates announced they would wait for the final results. However, Simion had already declared a “victory for Romania’s dignity” and called for vigilance in counting the votes to prevent fraud. Simion has been riding an anti-establishment wave, fuelled by ultranationalist Calin Georgescu, the ex-presidential candidate whose victory in the cancelled elections in December 2024 has thrown Romania into unprecedented turmoil - Euronews
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised Israel will strike back against Yemen’s Houthis and “their Iranian terror masters” after a missile launched by the militia movement hit the perimeter of Israel’s main airport. On X, the Israeli prime minister said on Sunday that Israel would respond to the Houthi attack “at a time and place of our choosing”. On Telegram, Netanyahu said Israel had acted against the Houthis in the past and would act again in the future. “It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he said. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, and Israeli military confirmed that the missile was launched from Yemen. Local media reported that Israeli and US defence systems had failed to down the missile, which left a deep crater in an open field on the perimeter of the airport, and that an investigation was under way. Most attacks from Yemen during the conflict in Gaza have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence systems, apart from a drone strike that hit Tel Aviv last July. Sunday’s missile strike sent a plume of smoke into the air, caused panic among passengers in the terminal building and led to air traffic being suspended for an hour. European and US carriers have cancelled flights for the next few days. Many had only recently begun to resume services to Israel after the Gaza ceasefire, which temporarily paused hostilities between mid-January and mid-March. This followed their suspension of flights for much of the last year and a half. The missile attack came hours before Israel’s security cabinet was due to vote on plans to expand the fighting in Gaza with a new offensive. Military officials confirmed on Sunday that tens of thousands of reservists had been called up, though it was unclear when any new operations would be launched - Guardian
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday a 100% tariff on movies produced outside of the United States, saying the U.S. movie industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries were offering to draw American filmmakers. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trump said he was authorizing the relevant U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Commerce to immediately begin the process of imposing a 100% tariff on all films produced abroad that are then sent into the United States. Trump added: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posting on X said: “We’re on it.” Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details on the implementation. It was not immediately clear whether the move would target production companies, foreign or American, producing films overseas - CNBC
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