“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.””
Many people that Trump deported and imprisoned without due process, claiming they were violent gang members, appear to not be violent or gang members.
The government’s system for identifying a “gang member” is clearly flawed and easily misidentifies people. And remember, these non gang members are not simply being sent home, but imprisoned in El Salvador, whether or not they are Elsaslvadorian or committed deserving crimes!
“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.”
“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.”
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“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.”
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“”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.””
“Trump administration officials admitted that Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested without a warrant.”
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“The attorneys argued that the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t required to get a warrant because they had reason to believe that Khalil was likely to “escape” before one would be obtained.”
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“Khalil is far from the first legal resident to face deportation for pro-Palestine speech. Last month Rubio said that he had cancelled around 300 student visas. “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” Rubio told reporters. “And if we’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away””
“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.””
“Attorney General Pam Bondi has decided that instead of working to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) as the Supreme Court has ordered, she will instead take to X to release documents from his 2019 arrest, in which a detective claimed he was an MS-13 member.”
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“These documents had already been publicly available, if you cared to look through the prior court proceedings. The Gang Field Interview Sheet, drafted up by Ivan Mendez, then an officer with the Prince George’s County Police Department, says Abrego Garcia was arrested with purported MS-13 members in a Home Depot parking lot, that he was wearing clothing that they believe to be affiliated with MS-13 (“a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations” which “officers know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture”), and that a confidential informant said he was part of MS-13.
Interestingly, reporting by The New Republic notes that Mendez was suspended the next month for “providing information to a commercial sex worker who he was paying in exchange for sexual acts.” (“The information he provided focused on an on-going police investigation,” per the county’s news release.)
Information has also come out about Abrego Garcia allegedly beating his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, stemming from a protection order she filed against him in 2021: “At this point, I am afraid to be close to him,” she wrote in the protection order. “I have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he [has] left me.” She cites specific examples from August 2020 and November 2020 in which he was violent toward her. Vasquez Sura told CNN that “she sought a civil protective order in 2021 after a disagreement with Abrego Garcia” and that “she had survived a previous relationship that included domestic violence.” She says she did not appear at a court hearing and pursue the matter further: “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling.””
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” the administration keeps implying that you cannot both support due process for Abrego Garcia and have empathy for the victims of violence from illegal immigrants.”
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“The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. The administration continues to demur on this front, instead choosing to release, via X…the protective order Vasquez Sura filed”
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“most people are neither angels nor demons, and even very bad and violent people—if that is what Abrego Garcia is—deserve due process. The punishment for wifebeating in Maryland, or entering the country illegally, is not indefinite confinement in a Salvadoran prison. He has not just been deported, he has been locked up in CECOT. (“A prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, because it is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back out into the world,” writes The New York Times’ Ezra Klein. “It is a prison where the only way out, in the words of El Salvador’s so-called justice minister, is a coffin.”)”