The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Thursday said President Donald Trump likely has the authority to fire independent agency board members, endorsing a robust view of presidential power.

But the court suggested that it could block an attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who Trump has complained has not cut interest rates aggressively.

The court’s action essentially extended an order Chief Justice John Roberts issued in April that had the effect of removing two board members who Trump fired from agencies that deal with labor issues, including one with a key role for federal workers as Trump aims to drastically downsize the workforce.

The firings have left both agencies without enough board members to take final actions on issues before them, as Trump has not sought to appoint replacements.

The decision Thursday keeps on hold an appellate ruling that had temporarily reinstated Gwynne Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

While not a final ruling, the court said in an unsigned order that the Constitution appears to give the president the authority to fire the board members “without cause.”

The court’s three liberal justices dissented. “Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The court refused to reinstate Harris and Wilcox while their cases play out in the courts over warnings from their lawyers that their action would signal that Trump is free to fire members of every independent agency, including the Federal Reserve Board.

“That way lies chaos,” lawyer Neal Katyal wrote in a high court filing on behalf of Harris.

Trump confirms South Sudan deportations

President Donald Trump on Thursday confirmed that a group of migrants from countries including Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico were stuck in the East African nation of Djibouti on their way to being deported to South Sudan, a location U.S. officials had previously said in court was classified.

The revelation, made by the president in a social media post, came as the legal fate of the eight men remained uncertain and their exact whereabouts unknown. A lawyer for some of the migrants said she was concerned for their welfare.

In a sharp rebuke of the government Wednesday, a federal judge in Boston found the deportation of the men from Texas a day earlier violated an order he issued last month requiring that immigrants receive reasonable notice before being deported to a country not their own.

Judge blocks nixing of foreign students’ visas

A judge in California blocked the Trump administration Thursday from terminating the legal status of international students nationwide while a court case challenging previous terminations is pending.

The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland bars the government from arresting, incarcerating or moving students elsewhere based on their legal status until the case is resolved. Students could still be arrested for other reasons and their legal status can still be revoked if they are convicted of a violent crime carrying a prison term of more than a year.

Most courts hearing these types of cases have granted protections to the person suing, but White said the government’s actions “wreaked havoc” not only on the lives of plaintiffs but other nonimmigrants in the U.S. on student visas.

Khalil sees newborn, defends himself in court

Mahmoud Khalil testified Thursday that he had never imagined that the United States would persecute him for his speech and that his deportation could lead to “assassination, kidnapping, torture” — and danger for his wife and the infant son he had met just hours earlier.

“This is truly unlawful, what is happening to me,” he said, adding, “I believe that justice will prevail.”

It was a whirlwind day for Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and one of the leading figures in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. In the early morning, he saw his month-old child, Deen, for the first time. And for hours, he sat through testimony from witnesses called by his lawyers who said that he would be in mortal danger were he to be deported.

In his own testimony, Khalil said that the U.S. government had “mislabeled me a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, which couldn’t be further from the truth.” Regardless, he said, wherever he might go in the world, he would have a target on his back.

Trump targets policy on migrant children

The Trump administration is seeking to end an immigration policy cornerstone that since the 1990s has offered protections to child migrants in federal custody, a move that will be challenged by advocates, according to a court filing Thursday.

The protections in place, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, largely limit to 72 hours the amount of time that child migrants traveling alone or with family are detained by the U.S. Border Patrol. They also ensure the children are kept in safe and sanitary conditions.

Government attorneys called the Flores agreement an “intrusive regime” that has “ossified” federal immigration policy. In a motion filed Thursday afternoon, they contend that the agreement is no longer necessary after Congress passed legislation and government agencies enforced policies that also implement standards and regulations called for in the agreement.

GAO: Trump wrongly halted $5B in funding

The Trump administration violated the law when it halted funding under a $5 billion federal infrastructure program, according to a nonpartisan government watchdog, which concluded Thursday that officials should restore the aid for electric vehicle charging stations as authorized by Congress.

The Government Accountability Office’s findings appeared to inch the government closer to a high-stakes constitutional showdown, as President Donald Trump increasingly claims expansive powers to defy lawmakers and control the nation’s purse strings as part of his broad reorganization of U.S. government.

The allegations arise from Trump’s first days in office, when he and his administration raced to block vast swaths of the federal budget seen as incompatible with his political beliefs.

One of the president’s targets was the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, a roughly $5 billion tranche of money enacted as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021 to create a national network of charging stations. Trump and his allies had long denounced that money as wasteful, and the Transportation Department froze the program’s continued funding in February.

Judge blocks razing of Education Department

A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at dismantling the Education Department and ordered officials to reinstate thousands of fired employees in a ruling that marked at least a temporary setback for the president and his plans.

The decision from Judge Myong J. Joun of U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was a preliminary injunction, meaning it will remain in force until the case is resolved or a higher court overturns it.

The injunction was requested by a pair of school districts in Massachusetts, the American Federation of Teachers and 21 Democratic state attorneys general who sued Trump in March to block his executive order and reverse a massive round of layoffs. Joun agreed with their argument that the actions equated to an illegal shutdown of the agency, which only Congress can abolish.

Trump’s political war chest surges to $600M

Between a barrage of executive orders, foreign trips and norm-shattering proclamations, Donald Trump has also been busy raking in cash.

The president has amassed a war chest of at least $600 million in political donations heading into the midterm elections, according to three people familiar with the matter. It’s an unprecedented sum in modern politics, particularly for a lame-duck president who is barred by the U.S. Constitution from running again.

Trump is keeping an aggressive fundraising schedule with the ultimate goal of raising $1 billion or more to back his agenda and hold the House and Senate next November, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Any money left over after his term could help him maintain enormous influence over the Republican Party.

— News service reports