“At the heart of the Trump administration’s position is a naked assertion of unchecked power. Once the federal government has deported someone to the hellish prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration asserts, there is nothing that anyone—especially not a federal judge—can do about it. What is worse, by the administration’s own admission, it does not matter whether the deportee was lawfully removed in the first place or not. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor has accurately observed, “the Government’s argument…implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.” The word for what Sotomayor is describing is despotism.”
“Trump openly signed executive orders—in full view of the press—directing the Department of Justice to criminally investigate two people who publicly disagreed with him. He has also issued numerous orders targeting law firms for representing clients he does not favor, constituting clear shakedown attempts.
If there is anything to be said for the current administration, at least Trump is practicing his corruption out in the open.”
“President Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress less than six weeks ago and vowed to do something that has not been done in nearly a quarter century: balance the federal budget.
New numbers from the Treasury and recent developments in Congress suggest that’s not going to happen. Indeed, all indications are pointing in the opposite direction.
The federal government borrowed $1.3 trillion during the first six months of the current fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported last week. That’s the second-highest six-month total in history, bested only by the record set in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“If you’re keeping track—and economists are making their best efforts—President Donald Trump’s trade war with the entire planet is running up quite a price tag. Even with a 90-day pause on some tariffs (except for China), the imposition or even just the threat of import taxes on goods from around the world and the inevitable retaliation by other countries is expected to take a bite out of the economy and people’s prosperity. Figuring out how much of a bite it will take is a trick, but there’s little doubt that it will be painful.”
“In general, a foreign national is neither excludable nor deportable “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States.” But the INA makes an exception when “the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The only statutory requirement to invoke that exception is that the secretary of state “has reasonable ground to believe” that someone’s “presence or activities” would “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.””
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“Giving “a single government official sweeping and nearly unchecked power to pick and choose individuals to deport based on beliefs alone, without alleging a single crime, crosses a line that should never be crossed in a free society,” Creeley said. “The only ‘crime’ the government has offered [is] that Mahmoud Khalil expressed a disfavored political opinion. If that’s a crime in America, every single one of us is guilty.””
“Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says all the migrants whom the Trump administration sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month are “actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more,” even if they “don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.” She adds that “we have a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process.”
McLaughlin’s idea of due process is notably different from the right that the Supreme Court upheld last week, when it ruled that suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua “are entitled to notice and [an] opportunity to be heard” before they are deported. According to federal officials, the government’s methods are infallible, so there is no need for hearings—a position that is plainly inconsistent with due process as it is ordinarily understood.”
“In an opinion issued on Wednesday, a federal judge found that the evidence “strongly support[s]” the conclusion that the Trump administration “willfully disobeyed” a March 15 order temporarily barring the removal of suspected Venezuelan gang members as “alien enemies.” James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the government’s actions “demonstrate a willful disregard” for that order, “sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.””
“President Donald Trump has cracked down on immigration in his second term, deporting undocumented migrants and perhaps citizens next.
In the process, members of Trump’s administration have demonstrated an overt hostility to basic rights of due process.
On March 12, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Three days later, the government deported him back to El Salvador to be held in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), an overcrowded and dangerous mega-prison where the country’s president offered to warehouse deportees from the U.S.
There is much to oppose in that action, perhaps most of all that Abrego Garcia—who had previously been granted a reprieve from deportation—was denied any semblance of due process when government agents grabbed him up, told him his protected status had been revoked, and shuffled him out of the country, all within the span of a long weekend.
The Trump administration contends Abrego Garcia is not entitled to due process, in part because he is a member of the violent street gang MS-13. “That may be true,” wrote Cato Institute scholar David Post. “The government, however, has provided no evidence, to a grand jury or to a magistrate or to any third party, that it is true.”
Nevertheless, the government is sticking by the claim.”
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“According to an April order by Judge Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court of Maryland, Abrego Garcia immigrated from El Salvador to flee gang violence, settling in Maryland with his brother, a U.S. citizen. After he was arrested in 2019 and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation, he told an immigration judge he would be subject to gang retaliation if he was sent back. The judge denied his request for bond and ordered him detained “pending the outcome of his requested relief from deportation,” as Xinis wrote. (By itself, a denial of bond is not indicative that he presents any danger: “The immigration judge is only taking at face value any evidence that the government provides,” said David Bier of the Cato Institute. “It is not assessing its underlying validity at that stage.”)
Later that year, “following a full evidentiary hearing, the [immigration judge] granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador,” which “prohibits [the Department of Homeland Security] from returning an alien to the specific country in which he faces clear probability of persecution,” Xinis added.”
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“Vance’s post is galling for how little he seems to care about due process, the constitutional provision nominally preventing the government from throwing any of us in prison for any reason it wishes. That this seems to reflect the general attitude of the administration in which he serves would be frightening even if not for the fact that its only justification is that it simply doesn’t make mistakes when identifying terrorists and gang members.
“Ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with [former President Joe] Biden’s millions and millions of illegals,” Vance wrote. “And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year?”
This has nothing to do with deporting the undocumented: A judge already adjudicated Abrego Garcia’s case and granted him a reprieve from deportation. If the Trump administration had contrary evidence indicating he should instead be deported, then it should present that evidence in a court of law.
Instead, what evidence has been presented is flimsy, to say the least. “The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York—a place he has never lived,” Xinis wrote. “No evidence before the Court connects Abrego García to MS-13 or any other criminal organization.”
Even what flimsy evidence there is has fallen apart in recent days: That single “vague, uncorroborated allegation” was lodged by Ivan Mendez, a Maryland police officer who arrested Abrego Garcia in 2019. Within days, Mendez was suspended, and would later be indicted, for giving “confidential information” about “an on-going police investigation” to “a commercial sex worker who he was paying in exchange for sexual acts,” according to the Prince George’s County Police Department.”
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“”When Garcia was arrested he was found with rolls of cash and drugs,” wrote Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “He was arrested with two other members of MS-13” while “wearing what is effectively MS-13’s uniform.””
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“wearing NBA merch is not a crime. And if Abrego Garcia were actually associating with MS-13 members, or if he were abusive to his wife, then these are details that would be extremely pertinent to bring up in a court of law.
Instead, the administration has obfuscated even in the face of judicial action. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court order finding deportees were entitled to due process and instructing the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. The administration even admitted in court filings that Abrego Garcia was deported “because of an administrative error.” (The attorney who filed the brief containing that language was apparently later suspended.)
Nevertheless, the administration insists it has no ability to retrieve Abrego Garcia from the Salvadoran prison where the U.S. government is currently paying $25,000 to house him—what Reason’s Damon Root called “a naked assertion of unchecked power.” In the Oval Office, Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele each claimed they were unable to return the man mistakenly deported and housed in a facility intended for terrorists.”
“The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS’ Direct File program, an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast and economical. But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.”