A Federal Judge Orders Relief for Alleged Gang Members Deported and Imprisoned Without Due Process

“Under the Fifth Amendment, Boasberg notes, the government’s assertion that it infallibly identifies the guilty “does not suffice.” As the Supreme Court confirmed in Trump v. J.G.G., which addressed a temporary restraining order (TRO) that Boasberg issued during an earlier round of the ACLU’s litigation, “‘it is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law’ in the context of removal proceedings,” meaning “the detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard ‘appropriate to the nature of the case.'” Specifically, the justices said, “AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.””

https://reason.com/2025/06/05/a-federal-judge-orders-relief-for-alleged-gang-members-deported-and-imprisoned-without-due-process/

As American as Due Process

“To argue that Riley’s murder, tragic though it was, justifies skirting due process fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the doctrine. It is not to excuse criminal behavior, but to ensure that accusations—especially when they carry life-altering consequences—are publicly tested by evidence and judged fairly.

Homan’s logic would see due process abolished. It need not apply, he says, in the face of serious allegations or unsympathetic individuals, which is contrary to why the Founders demanded its inclusion in the Constitution. They knew the power of the state was dangerous. The government doesn’t always get it right. “Because we said so” isn’t sufficient reason to abrogate anyone’s liberty.

That the prisoners sent to CECOT were not citizens is irrelevant. The Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that even those suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully are entitled to due process of law. And the people in question were not merely deported—they were sent without charge or conviction to a notorious megaprison, where Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has said she hopes the men are kept for life.”

“A country that claims to value liberty cannot shed the process meant to protect it. If due process is no longer sacred, neither is justice; and if some of us do not have due process, then none of us do. Trump has defined himself as someone who fights for American values: “Make America Great Again.” You cannot do that by discarding one of the core values that made the U.S. exceptional.”

https://reason.com/2025/06/08/as-american-as-due-process/

DOJ Brings Kilmar Abrego Garcia Back to the U.S. After Insisting It Couldn’t

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. to appear in court on Friday, more than two months after being deported to a prison in El Salvador, the country of his birth. No matter how the trial shakes out, it’s just the latest example of the Trump administration playing fast and loose with both the facts and the law.”

“Xinis “order[ed] that [the administration] return Abrego Garcia to the United States.” The Supreme Court intervened, staying Xinis’ order but otherwise affirming its finding to “facilitate…the return of [Abrego Garcia] to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7.”
But the administration refused, illogically claiming it had no right to do so. During an Oval Office meeting in April, both Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele mocked the idea of returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said. In a legal filing that same day, DHS acting general counsel Joseph Mazzarra said the department “does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”

“He is not coming back to our country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News. “President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story.”

So, the news on Friday that Abrego Garcia was coming back—and at the Department of Justice’s direction, no less—was a bit stunning.”

“even though the indictment could very well just be retroactive justification for deporting someone in violation of numerous court orders, it remains the case that a court of law is the ideal place to adjudicate allegations against Abrego Garcia—not unsourced allegations delivered in press conferences and on social media.”

https://reason.com/2025/06/09/doj-brings-kilmar-abrego-garcia-back-to-the-u-s-after-insisting-it-couldnt/

Trump administration acknowledges another error in a high-profile deportation

“When a Guatemalan man sued the Trump administration in March for deporting him to Mexico despite a fear of persecution, immigration officials had a response: The man told them himself he was not afraid to be sent there.

But in a late Friday court filing, the administration acknowledged that this claim — a key plank of the government’s response to a high-stakes class action lawsuit — was based on erroneous information.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/16/trump-administration-another-error-high-profile-deportation-00355377

JD Sparks Twitter Debate—INSTANTLY DESTROYS Himself

JD Vance takes to Twitter to make false claims while advocating for taking away immigrants’ due process rights.

The right to due process is for all people on American soil. It doesn’t mean people suspected of being illegal immigrants get a full jury trial, but there is some appropriate process to decrease the possibility of penalizing, deporting, or sending them to a dictator who may kill them for opposing the authoritarian regime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ERNHiToU0

The Trump Administration Is Using Tattoos, Logos, and Clothes To Identify Supposed Gang Members

“When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Venezuelan makeup artist Andry Hernandez Romero in 2024, it suspected he belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet ICE provided no “official records, media reports, and correspondence,” “intelligence information received from other agencies,” or “validation” or “confirmation” by “law enforcement, Corrections, or sending jurisdiction,” to prove that Hernandez Romero was tied to the gang.

Instead, ICE officials flagged Hernandez Romero as a potential Tren de Aragua associate based on two of his tattoos: the words mom and dad, topped with crowns, on each wrist.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/05/deported-for-tattoos/

First They Came for the Samnites

Sulla broke republican norms in an attempt to make Rome great again, paving the road for Julius and Augustus to later end the Roman Republic.

Sulla had purges, starting with the most vulnerable. People didn’t join together to stop Sulla until it was too late, hoping that Sulla would stop after Sulla was done persecuting other groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh4LLvpr-7g

This Man Just Disappeared

“The Trump administration has lost a Venezuelan migrant they deported. His family cannot track him down, and the administration has not given any indication as to where he went. He’s not on lists of people deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. He’s not in the Immigration and Customs detainee database. ICE confirms he’s been sent out of the country, but nobody can say where.”

https://reason.com/2025/04/23/this-man-just-disappeared/

Justice Department Memo Claims Alien Enemies Act Allows Warrantless Home Searches and No Judicial Review

“Newly uncovered guidance from the Justice Department claims the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) allows federal law enforcement officers to enter the houses of suspected gang members without a warrant and remove them from the country without any judicial review.”

“The Trump administration has refused to disclose many of the operational details of its unprecedented invocation of the 1798 wartime law to send alleged TDA members to a prison in El Salvador under an agreement with that country’s president, Nayib Bukele. The memo is one of the first public glimpses at the Trump administration’s claims that it can identify, pursue, arrest, and deport migrants, unconstrained by the Fourth Amendment or due process.”

“”The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” Wilkinson warned. “Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.””

https://reason.com/2025/04/25/justice-department-memo-claims-alien-enemies-act-allows-warrantless-home-searches-and-no-judicial-review/

Deporting the Cancer Kid

“What do you do with U.S. citizen children when a noncitizen parent is deported? The Trump administration has so far answered this question by saying, Well, actually, it’s not much of a question at all, hurry up and deport them already, let’s not ask any questions or consult any lawyers.”

“Doughty, who President Donald Trump appointed, issued an order expressing his fear that the toddler had been deported against her father’s wishes, noting that it is “illegal and unconstitutional” to deport U.S. citizens. “The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the Court doesn’t know that,” wrote the judge. “Seeking the path of least resistance, the Court called counsel for the Government at 12:19 p.m. CST, so that we could speak with VML’s mother and survey her consent and custodial rights. The Court was independently aware at the time that the plane, tail number N570TA, was above the Gulf of America. The Court was then called back by counsel for the Government at 1:06 p.m. CST, informing the Court that a call with VML’s mother would not be possible, because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras.” A hearing is set for May 16 due to the judge’s “strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.””

“Two other U.S. citizen children were deported to Honduras with their illegal immigrant mother, denying the 4-year-old child—who has metastatic cancer—access to his medication.
Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, told NBC that the boy with cancer and his 7-year-old sister were detained on Thursday; taken to El Paso, Texas; and flown to Honduras on Friday morning.”

“the deported mothers not have sufficient access to attorneys or family members to make arrangements for the care of minor children. This runs contra ICE’s own policies, “which mandate coordination for the care of minor children with willing caretakers—regardless of immigration status—when deportations are being carried out,””

https://reason.com/2025/04/28/deporting-the-cancer-kid/