The Nation - News from Oct. 2, 1988

The President cannot prohibit humanitarian aid to foreign countries, a federal judge in Laredo, Tex., said in a ruling supporting a group that fought the government over plans to take vehicles filled with donated goods to Nicaragua. The Veterans Peace Convoy eventually was able to take 30 of the group’s 38 vehicles across the border at Laredo last July. U.S. District Judge George P. Kazen’s ruling in a suit filed by the group limits the scope of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the basis for the Administration’s economic embargo of Nicaragua. The law contains an exemption for humanitarian aid. Kazen’s ruling said that because of the exemption, the President has no authority to regulate or prohibit U.S. citizens’ donations to foreign countries, “which the donor intends to be used to relieve human suffering.”