Trump Administration Seeks to Expand Federal Executions With Firing Squads and Lethal Injection

The U.S. Department of Justice, under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, announced this Friday that it wants to “readoptar el uso de la inyección letal aplicada durante el primer mandato de la administración Trump” and to “expandir el protocolo para incluir maneras adicionales de ejecución, como pelotones de fusilamiento.”

CNN en Español said the DOJ is also “ampliar dicho protocolo para incluir métodos de ejecución adicionales, como el pelotón de fusilamiento, y agilizar los procesos internos para acelerar los casos de pena de muerte.”

Al Jazeera

The Diari ARA account tied the proposal to President Donald Trump’s promise to restore the death penalty during his second term, after a pause of twenty years, and said that in the last months of his first term, “se ejecutaron trece presos federales mediante inyecciones letales.”

Diari ARA also said the federal system is decentralized, with 27 states where the death penalty exists and at least five that have adopted firing squads, adding that Idaho approved the method in March 2025 and should enter into force on 1 July.

Todd Blanche told reporters that “La administración anterior incumplió su deber de proteger al pueblo estadounidense al negarse a perseguir y aplicar la pena máxima,” and he said the DOJ under Trump is “vuelve a hacer cumplir la ley y a solidarizarse con las víctimas.”

In the same CNN en Español report, Blanche said the DOJ is seeking to “agilizar el proceso para solicitar sentencias de muerte” and to reduce the number of years between sentencing and execution.

BBC

Diari ARA described how states can accept a method as legal without necessarily using it, citing California, Oregón and Pensilvania where governors pause executions with a moratoria even when a prisoner is sentenced to death.

The Intercept reported that, less than halfway through Trump’s second term, the DOJ has authorized “al menos 42” defendants in “34” cases, and quoted Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center saying, “The American public has made a very, very decisive turn away from the death penalty during the last 20 years.”

Beyond executions, the U.S. asylum fight reached a federal appellate court in Washington, D.C., where Lee Gelernt of the ACLU said, “This decision ends Trump's inhumane policy of sending people, including families with young children, back to situations of extreme danger without even holding a hearing.”

Democracy Now! said the proclamation was issued on the first day of Trump’s second term as President of the United States, while the court ruled that Trump’s “invasion” argument to block asylum applications at the U.S.–Mexico border is illegal.

In a separate federal case described by La Presse, Louisiana’s Attorney General opposed mail-order abortion pills without in-person consultation, and a federal court weighed in on Tuesday on a request for an injunction to immediately suspend these remote prescriptions nationwide.

La Presse also said the FDA was called to withdraw authorization granted in 2023 for mifepristone without in-person consultation, and that if judges approve the preliminary injunction sought on Tuesday, the mailing of the drug without face-to-face consultation would be suspended nationwide pending a final decision.