WASHINGTON: Legal advocacy groups sounded alarms on Saturday after US President Donald Trump threatened new actions against lawyers and law firms that bring immigration lawsuits and other cases against the government that he deems unethical.
In a memorandum to US Attorney General Pam Bondi late on Friday, Trump said lawyers were helping to fuel “rampant fraud and meritless claims” in the immigration system, and directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against attorneys for professional misconduct.
The order also took aim at law firms that sue the administration in what Trump, a Republican, called “baseless partisan” lawsuits. He asked Bondi to refer such firms to the White House to be stripped of security clearances, and for federal contracts they worked on to be terminated.
Ben Wizner, a senior lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new directive sought to “chill and intimidate” lawyers who challenge the president’s agenda. Trump has separately mounted attacks on law firms over their internal diversity policies and their ties to his political adversaries. “Courts have been the only institution so far that have stood up to Trump’s onslaught,” Wizner said. “Courts can’t play that role without lawyers bringing cases in front of them.”
The ACLU is involved in litigation against the administration over immigrant deportations, including the expulsion of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The Trump administration has been hit with more than 100 lawsuits challenging White House actions on immigration, transgender rights and other issues since the start of the president’s second term. Legal advocacy groups, along with at least 12 major law firms, have brought many of the cases.
A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said “President Trump is delivering on his promise to ensure the judicial system is no longer weaponized against the American people.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the memorandum, which directed Bondi to assess lawyers and firms that brought cases against the government over the past eight years.
Law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which is working with the ACLU in an immigrant rights case against the administration, said in a statement that it was “inexcusable and despicable” for Trump to attack lawyers based on their clients or legal work opposing the federal government.
Representatives from other prominent law firms that are representing clients in cases against Trump’s administration, including Hogan Lovells, Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump issued executive orders this month against law firms Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss, suspending their lawyers’ security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.
The president also last month suspended security clearances of lawyers at Covington & Burling, in each case citing the firms’ past work for his political or legal opponents.
The Keker firm on Saturday called on law firms to sign a joint court brief supporting a lawsuit by Perkins Coie challenging the executive order against it.
Paul Weiss on Thursday struck a deal with Trump to rescind the executive order against it, pledging to donate the equivalent of $40 million in free legal work to support some of the administration’s causes such as support for veterans and combating antisemitism.
Lawyers are bound by professional ethics rules that require them to investigate allegations before filing lawsuits and not deceive the courts. Imposing disciplinary sanctions on lawyers who violate such rules falls on the court system, not federal prosecutors, though prosecutors can charge lawyers with criminal misconduct.
Some lawyers aligned with Trump faced professional discipline over claims that they violated legal ethics rules in challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win over Trump.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who later was an attorney for Trump, was disbarred in New York and in the District of Columbia over baseless claims he made alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Lawyers for Civil Rights, a legal advocacy group suing the administration over deportations, called Trump’s sanctions threat hypocritical in a statement to Reuters, saying Trump and his allies “have repeatedly thumbed their noses at the rule of law.”
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Trump targets lawyers in immigration cases, lawsuits against administration
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Trump targets lawyers in immigration cases, lawsuits against administration
- The Trump administration has been hit with more than 100 lawsuits challenging White House actions on immigration, transgender rights and other issues since the start of the president’s second term
Greece backs coast guard after latest deadly migrant crash
ATHENS: The Greek government has firmly backed its coast guard, insisting it is “not a welcoming committee” as questions grow over a collision in the Aegean Sea this week that killed 15 asylum seekers.
The deadly crash occurred late Tuesday when the high-speed boat the migrants were traveling in collided with a coast guard patrol vessel off the Greek island of Chios, not far from the Turkish coast.
Four women were among the dead, while 24 survivors have been admitted to hospital in Chios.
Rights groups and international media have repeatedly accused Greece of illegally forcing would-be asylum seekers back into Turkish waters, backing their claims with video and witness testimonies.
Greek media and opposition parties have questioned the details of Tuesday’s crash, and the country’s ombudsman has called for “an impartial and thorough investigation,” stressing that the priority should always be “the protection of human life.”
On Thursday, the government said it fully backed the maritime agency.
“We have full confidence in the coast guard and we support them,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told reporters.
Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he was expecting “a full investigation” into the crash.
In the meantime, he argued that preliminary details showed that “essentially, our coast guard ship was rammed by a much smaller boat.”
“This is a situation that happens quite frequently in the Aegean,” he told Foreign Policy, arguing that smugglers were endangering migrants’ lives.
Had Greek authorities not been present, more people would probably have died, he alleged.
The coast guard was “not a welcoming committee” for people seeking asylum in the European Union, he told the magazine.
- Questions -
Following the crash the coast guard said the pilot of the migrant boat had ignored signals and “made a U-turn maneuver” before colliding with the Greek patrol boat.
“Under the force of the impact, the speedboat capsized and then sank, throwing everyone on board into the sea,” the agency said.
So far, none of the hospitalized survivors have testified directly.
One of them, a 31-year-old Moroccan man, was to be questioned by police as a possible smuggler.
Several Greek media outlets, including To Vima and private TV channel Mega, have reported the victims died of severe head injuries.
Some news organizations have questioned why the patrol boat’s thermal camera was not switched on.
“The captain of the patrol boat judged it unnecessary because the migrants’ speedboat had already been detected by a camera on shore and a spotlight,” government spokesman Marinakis said.
The port police released photos of the coast guard patrol vessel showing minor damage, but no images of the asylum seekers’ boat.
- ‘Obvious distress’ -
Abusive pushbacks have become the “norm” in Greece, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in 2023.
The crash off Chios was “not an isolated incident,” the Refugee Support Aegean charity said this week.
“Based on the available information and the initial announcement of the Hellenic Coast Guard, it appears that, instead of a search and rescue operation, an interception operation was deployed from the outset,” RSA said in a statement.
“This occurred while the refugees’ boat was in obvious distress, was overcrowded and was located at a short distance from the Greek coast,” the statement added.
It is far from the first time that international organizations have pointed the finger at Greece over how it treats migrant boats.
Eighteen of its coast guard members are being prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter due to negligence in the sinking of the trawler Adriana in June 2023.
The United Nations said around 750 people died in that tragedy — one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean in the past decade.
In 2022, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece for its responsibility in the capsizing of a migrant boat off the islet of Farmakonisi in the Aegean Sea.
Eleven people died, including eight children.
The deadly crash occurred late Tuesday when the high-speed boat the migrants were traveling in collided with a coast guard patrol vessel off the Greek island of Chios, not far from the Turkish coast.
Four women were among the dead, while 24 survivors have been admitted to hospital in Chios.
Rights groups and international media have repeatedly accused Greece of illegally forcing would-be asylum seekers back into Turkish waters, backing their claims with video and witness testimonies.
Greek media and opposition parties have questioned the details of Tuesday’s crash, and the country’s ombudsman has called for “an impartial and thorough investigation,” stressing that the priority should always be “the protection of human life.”
On Thursday, the government said it fully backed the maritime agency.
“We have full confidence in the coast guard and we support them,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told reporters.
Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he was expecting “a full investigation” into the crash.
In the meantime, he argued that preliminary details showed that “essentially, our coast guard ship was rammed by a much smaller boat.”
“This is a situation that happens quite frequently in the Aegean,” he told Foreign Policy, arguing that smugglers were endangering migrants’ lives.
Had Greek authorities not been present, more people would probably have died, he alleged.
The coast guard was “not a welcoming committee” for people seeking asylum in the European Union, he told the magazine.
- Questions -
Following the crash the coast guard said the pilot of the migrant boat had ignored signals and “made a U-turn maneuver” before colliding with the Greek patrol boat.
“Under the force of the impact, the speedboat capsized and then sank, throwing everyone on board into the sea,” the agency said.
So far, none of the hospitalized survivors have testified directly.
One of them, a 31-year-old Moroccan man, was to be questioned by police as a possible smuggler.
Several Greek media outlets, including To Vima and private TV channel Mega, have reported the victims died of severe head injuries.
Some news organizations have questioned why the patrol boat’s thermal camera was not switched on.
“The captain of the patrol boat judged it unnecessary because the migrants’ speedboat had already been detected by a camera on shore and a spotlight,” government spokesman Marinakis said.
The port police released photos of the coast guard patrol vessel showing minor damage, but no images of the asylum seekers’ boat.
- ‘Obvious distress’ -
Abusive pushbacks have become the “norm” in Greece, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in 2023.
The crash off Chios was “not an isolated incident,” the Refugee Support Aegean charity said this week.
“Based on the available information and the initial announcement of the Hellenic Coast Guard, it appears that, instead of a search and rescue operation, an interception operation was deployed from the outset,” RSA said in a statement.
“This occurred while the refugees’ boat was in obvious distress, was overcrowded and was located at a short distance from the Greek coast,” the statement added.
It is far from the first time that international organizations have pointed the finger at Greece over how it treats migrant boats.
Eighteen of its coast guard members are being prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter due to negligence in the sinking of the trawler Adriana in June 2023.
The United Nations said around 750 people died in that tragedy — one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean in the past decade.
In 2022, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece for its responsibility in the capsizing of a migrant boat off the islet of Farmakonisi in the Aegean Sea.
Eleven people died, including eight children.
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