The migrant crisis in Niger. THIS WEEKEND Special Section The papers each bore two names, one unknown, the other ubiquitous, facing off across the letter V. The V was important. It meant that in America, anyone could sue the president of the United States and hope to win. In New York, there was Dar- weesh v. Trump. In Colorado, Hagig v. Trump. There was also Ali v. Trump, Zadeh v. Trump, Bayani v. Trump, Albaldawi v. Trump. This was the same America whose president had declared a ban on travelers from predomi- nantly Muslim countries that trapped people in airports and in- terrupted lives. And the same America where an Ali or a Hagig could do what, back home, would have been the unthinkable: call a lawyer; stop the president. “It was never my intention to go against the president of the United States,” said Mohamed Iye, a Somali-born American citi- zen whose Somali wife and two American daughters were stranded in Nairobi after Presi- dent Trump’s first travel order prevented them from joining him in Minnesota. “I was just follow- ing the law and doing everything the way it’s in the books. And it came to this.” It came to this: more than 50 lawsuits across the country, with at least as many individual plain- tiffs; a reprieve from a federal judge in Seattle; a new ban; and, on March 15, a new set of road- blocks from federal judges in Ha- waii and Maryland. On Wednes- day, the judge in Hawaii turned his temporary restraining order against the ban into an indefinite one, fixing it in place unless it is overturned. The government is appealing those decisions, which have drawn Mr. Trump’s fury. His ad- ministration has insisted it will prevail. The people who sued the presi- dent this winter were Muslim, and they were Christian. They were professors and grocery clerks. They were parents, daughters and sons-in-law, and they were married but divided, or just plan- ning the wedding. They were Americans, or trying to become ones. The ban “isn’t really what this country’s about,” Mr. Iye, 66, said recently through an interpreter. “I wouldn’t have brought my family if I didn’t love this country, if I did- n’t believe this country was the land of dreams.” Mr. Trump’s original executive order, signed on Jan. 27, barred visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, including those with valid visas, from coming to the United States while federal agencies tightened their vetting procedures. It also In Lawsuit After Lawsuit, It’s Everyday People v. the President By VIVIAN YEE Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Ali, center, a Yemeni-born American citizen, was briefly stranded in Djibouti by the first travel ban. MAX WHITTAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A14 More Than 50 Cases Against an Order on Immigration U(D54G1D)y+#![!.!=!/ WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday revived Presi- dent Trump’s unproven wiretap- ping allegations against the Obama administration, insisting that there is new evidence that it conducted “politically motivated” surveillance of Mr. Trump’s presi- dential campaign. Senior government officials, in- cluding James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, and lawmakers from both parties, have repeatedly and forcefully rejected the president’s claim, saying they have seen no evidence of direct surveillance. A spokesman for former President Barack Obama has denied that Mr. Obama ever ordered surveil- lance of Mr. Trump or his associates. But Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, asserted to reporters during his daily news briefing that members of Mr. Oba- ma’s administration had done “very, very bad things,” just as Mr. Trump alleged without proof on March 4 when he posted mes- sages on Twitter accusing Mr. Obama of “wire tapping” his phones at Trump Tower. “The question is why? Who else did it? Was it ordered? By whom?” Mr. Spicer said. “But I think more and more the sub- stance that continues to come out on the record by individuals continues to point to exactly what the president was talking about that day.” Mr. Spicer appeared to be basing his assertions on reports from right-wing news outlets that took out of context a month-old in- terview with a former Obama ad- ministration official. Mr. Spicer’s comments came in the midst of a drumbeat of devel- opments in the multiple investiga- tions into Russian contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates, and a week after the president failed to Continued on Page A11 Spicer Asserts Political Intent In Surveillance Comments Come Amid Inquiries Into Russia By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS Ivanka Trump and Jared Kush- ner, President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, will remain the beneficiaries of a sprawling real estate and investment business still worth as much as $740 mil- lion, despite their new govern- ment responsibilities, according to ethics filings released by the White House Friday night. Ms. Trump will also maintain a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The ho- tel, just down the street from the White House, has drawn protests from ethics experts who worry that foreign governments or spe- cial interests could stay there in order to curry favor with the ad- ministration. It is unclear how Ms. Trump would earn income from that stake. Mr. Kushner’s financial dis- closures said that Ms. Trump earned between $1 million and $5 million from the hotel between January 2016 and March 2017, and put the value of her stake at be- tween $5 million and $25 million. The disclosures were part of a broad, Friday-night document re- lease by the White House that ex- posed the assets of as many as 180 senior officials to public scrutiny. The reports showed the assets and wealth of senior staff mem- bers at the time they entered gov- ernment service. Those disclosures included the assets of Gary D. Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs who now leads the National Economic Council; Kellyanne Conway, the pollster and counsel to Mr. Trump; and Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist to the presi- Continued on Page A15 TRUMP’S FAMILY STILL BENEFITING FROM BUSINESSES ETHICS FILINGS RELEASED Kushner Empire Worth Up to $740 Million — Ties Scrutinized This article is by Jesse Drucker, Eric Lipton and Maggie Haberman. For Braulio Jatar, it was the big- gest scoop in years: Venezuela’s president was being chased by a crowd screaming of hunger, bang- ing on pots and pans. The photos and video of Presi- dent Nicolás Maduro soon ap- peared on Mr. Jatar’s news site, Reporte Confidencial, and spread throughout the nation. The mob cornering Mr. Maduro was a shock in Venezuela — anger in food lines and even riots were a fa- miliar sight, but no one had ever ambushed the president that way. Before he went to bed, Mr. Jatar fired off a series of Twitter mes- sages, some alluding to witness testimony he would soon broad- cast on his 9 a.m. radio show. But he never got the chance. He now sits locked in a jail cell, a political prisoner, rights activists say. Venezuela this week took its biggest plunge yet toward the one-man rule of Mr. Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court gutted the country’s opposition- controlled legislature, seizing the powers of the only body seen as a counter to the president’s growing authority. But the move was just part of a slide from democracy that has been gaining steady momentum in the country over the past year — seen starkly in prison cells where the ranks of political prisoners are growing. Those cells are filled with well-known opponents of Mr. Maduro, like a Prison Ranks Attest to Grip of Venezuelan Rule By NICHOLAS CASEY and ANA VANESSA HERRERO Continued on Page A9 Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed on Friday to close the troubled jail complex on Rikers Island, which has spawned federal investiga- tions, brought waves of protests and became a byword for brutal- ity, in a move he said was intended to end an era of mass incarcera- tion in New York City. The pledge to eventually close Rikers, a proposition once thought to be politically and practically un- feasible, came as an independent commission was about to release a 97-page report that recom- mended replacing the jails on Rik- ers with a system of smaller, bor- ough-based jails, at a cost of $10.6 billion. “This is a very serious, sober, forever decision,” Mr. de Blasio said, standing in the marbled ro- tunda of City Hall beside the speaker of the City Council, Melis- sa Mark-Viverito, who has cham- pioned the closing of the complex while pushing the mayor to em- brace the idea. “Once you’re off, you’re off,” he said of the island. Mr. de Blasio said the jails could be closed in 10 years, providing the city could reduce the number of people who cycle through the city’s system to 5,000; low enough, that is, for every inmate to be taken off the 400-acre island and housed instead in jails else- where in the city. De Blasio Vows To Close Rikers, Ending an Era By J. DAVID GOODMAN Continued on Page A19 WASHINGTON — Increas- ingly, when it comes to foreign trade, the Trump administration is talking loudly and brandishing a small stick. The widening gap between President Trump’s bellicose talk and the modest actions of his ad- ministration was again on display Friday afternoon as he presided at the ceremonial signing of two ex- ecutive orders. They would, he said, “set the stage for a great re- vival of American manufactur- ing.” “Under my administration, the theft of American prosperity will end,” he said. But the new orders, authorizing a large research study and strengthened enforcement of an existing law, are unlikely to effect a major change in the nation’s for- tunes. Instead, the ceremony highlighted an emerging pattern on trade. Mr. Trump blasted the Trans- Pacific Partnership as a “potential disaster” and made a great show of removing the United States from the ratification process. On Friday, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers on trade said the Trump administration planned to use the scorned agreement as a “starting point” for its own deals. Mr. Trump described the North American Free Trade Agreement President’s Growing Trade Gap: A Gulf Between Talk and Action By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM President Trump before signing two executive orders on Friday. ERIC THAYER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A13 A revival of the play “Zoot Suit,” above, which debuted on Broadway in 1979, inspires fans to dress the part. PAGE A10 NATIONAL A10-17 Splashy ‘Zoot Suit’ Devotees The fight over the Supreme Court con- firmation reflects years of partisan tensions and hypocrisy. PAGE A16 Schoolyard Logic on Nominee Coach Roy Williams of the University of North Carolina has a distinct style of teaching, and of speaking. PAGE D1 SPORTSSATURDAY D1-8 Coach Williams Does It His Way The Spokane, Wash., university’s bas- ketball team has turned a 16th-century Jesuit into a household name. PAGE D2 Behind the Name Gonzaga A devastating attack on officials in Afghanistan early this year offers clues to the entanglements and rivalries of an enduring war. PAGE A4 INTERNATIONAL A4-9 A Deadly Trail to the Taliban The secretary of state affirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO, but again told allies to invest more in defense. PAGE A8 U.S. to NATO: Pay Up As deaths from heroin and pills in- crease, many educators want to have an opioid antidote on hand. PAGE A18 NEW YORK A18-20 Schools Prepare for Overdoses April D. Ryan’s run-in with the White House press secretary propelled her into a debate over the administration’s attitudes on gender and race. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-6 Chastised Reporter Wins Fans William T. Coleman Jr., who rose above racial barriers as an influential lawyer and as a cabinet secretary in the Ford administration, was 96. PAGE A24 OBITUARIES A21, 24 Champion of Civil Rights Gail Collins PAGE A23 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23 Late Edition VOL. CLXVI . . . No. 57,554 + © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2017 RON JENKINS/GETTY IMAGES Morgan William’s jumper for Mississippi State beat the Huskies in the Final Four. Page D1. The Shot That Ended Connecticut’s Winning Streak Today, mostly cloudy, some morning rain, high 46. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 37. Tomorrow, mostly sunny, breezy, a milder afternoon, high 58. Weather map appears on Page C8. $2.50