Monthly Archives: May 2025

Independent: Immigrants are being rounded up in Hawaii’s coffee fields and being treated worse than ‘cats and dogs,’ locals say

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Armando Rodriguez and his wife Karina have employed immigrant workers on Aloha Star Coffee Farms on the Big Island in Hawaii for decades, but ICE officials are now arresting their workers

Donald Trump’s war on immigration has impacted all corners of the U.S., but now, immigration officials have targeted an isolated patch on Hawaii’s Big Island.

“Even cats and dogs have rights here and in the United States, and they’re being treated better than some of our community members here,” Armando Rodriguez, owner of Aloha Star Coffee Farms, told local station KITV.

…

He explained that his initiative, Aloha Latinos, has focused on protecting civil rights for Hispanic residents who live with their families on the island.

Yet, many lives were now being torn apart because of the recent raids, he added.

“Our fear has turned into anger. A lot of communities are mad, they’re creating angry people here,” he said.

…

“It’s terrifying. People today are seeing their parents arrested right in front of them. Children are seeing their parents treated as criminals,” Kona Coffee farmer, Victoria Magana, told KITV.

ICE officials have been targeting Hawaii’s coffee farmers, locals say
Armando Rodriguez and his wife, Karina, employ green-card workers on Aloha Star Coffee Farms on the Big Island in Hawaii. They say ICE officials have now started arresting other local farmers on the island

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/immigrants-hawaii-coffee-farms-ice-b2753911.html

Law & Crime: ‘We have concerns’: Appeals court shoots down Trump DHS bid to continue carrying out ‘third country’ deportations

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A federal appellate court on Friday declined to lift a nationwide injunction that bars the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from carrying out President Donald Trump’s plans to summarily deport immigrants to countries where they are not from, allegedly without due process.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling in a two-page order, denying an emergency motion from the government for a stay of an April 18 preliminary injunction. The three-judge panel determined that DHS failed to satisfy the criteria required for such relief, and the court has “concerns regarding the continuing application of the Department of Homeland Security’s March 30 Guidance Regarding Third Country Removals,” among other things, according to the order.

…

The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by immigration advocates after DHS issued new guidance authorizing the removal of certain noncitizens to “third countries” not named in their immigration proceedings, and with which they allegedly have no historical or legal ties. The plaintiffs argued that the policy violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, as well as obligations under the Convention Against Torture human rights treaty.

1st Circuit shoots down Trump DHS bid to continue ‘third country’ deportations
A federal appeals court on Friday declined to lift a nationwide injunction that blocks Trump’s plans to summarily deport immigrants to countries they are not from, allegedly without due process.
‘We have concerns’: Appeals court shoots down Trump DHS bid to continue carrying out ‘third country’ deportations

New Republic: Transcript: Trump’s Threats to Defy Courts Suddenly Get More Dangerous

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As Trump’s intent to override the courts gets more obvious, a legal commentator who closely observes MAGA lawlessness explains why the Trump-MAGA strategy here is darker than you thought.

This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

President Donald Trump is very unhappy with how things went at the Supreme Court when it comes to his effort to end birthright citizenship. He uncorked two angry epic tirades about the High Court, essentially putting it on notice that it had better rule his way on this and other matters coming before it or else. This may look like typical Trumpian bullying and threats, but we think there’s a game going on here that people are missing. It’s that Trump is, in a very real sense, playing chicken with the Supreme Court. He’s trying to bluff the justices into constraining themselves from putting limits on Trump’s power. We’re going to explore how this really works today with one of our favorite legal commentators, Matthew Seligman, a fellow at Stanford Law School.

Best to click on the link and read the dialogue:

Transcript: Trump’s Threats to Defy Courts Suddenly Get More Dangerous
As Trump’s intent to override the courts gets more obvious, a legal commentator who closely observes MAGA lawlessness explains why the Trump-MAGA strategy here is darker than you thought.

https://newrepublic.com/article/195392/transcript-trump-threats-defy-courts-suddenly-get-dangerous

Raw Story: Trump’s henchmen are driving him to Supreme Court clash that he doesn’t care about: expert

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President Donald Trump seems likely to stage a major showdown with the U.S. Supreme Court that a legal expert believes is an intentional effort to gather up authoritarian powers.

The president has been attacking judges who rule against him in legal challenges to his executive orders, and Stanford Law School’s Matthew Seligman told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent that Vice President JD [“Dunce”] Vance and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen [“Goebbels”] Miller were even more eager than Trump to break the courts.

“This implicates an important distinction between Trump as an optical authoritarian versus [“Dunce”] Vance and [“Goebbels”] Miller as substantive authoritarians,” Seligman said. “Trump wants the trappings of authoritarianism. He wants everybody to talk about how he’s the most powerful person, and he wants it to look like he’s in charge.”

“He wants the big parade,” …

But:

The vice president and Trump’s deputy chief of staff want to break the court’s opposition to Trump so the president carry out the “pure will of the people,” meaning the MAGA base, without bureaucratic obstacles, as Sargent put it.

“[“Goebbels”] Miller and [“Dunce”] Vance, I think, are much more committed to substantive authoritarianism,” Seligman agreed. “They actually want to exercise the power. They actually want to degrade the rule of law because they actually want to impose this particular vision — very dark vision — of America’s future on the country. 

Trump’s henchmen are driving him to Supreme Court clash that he doesn’t care about: expert

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-supreme-court-2672130148

MSNBC: Trump is making an unprecedented effort to scrub the historical record

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A new Associated Press analysis of President Donald Trump’s many methods for destroying records raises the remarkable possibility that the Trump administration could “leave less for the nation’s historical record than nearly any before it.” It’s a useful lens for understanding how Trump conceals information to evade accountability and undermine democracy.

As the AP notes, there are many different ways that Trump is making it impossible to track what his administration is doing:

The Trump administration is scrubbing thousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable. It has sought to expand the executive branch’s power to shield from public view the government-slashing efforts of Elon Musk’s team and other key administration initiatives. Officials have used apps such as Signal that can auto-delete messages containing sensitive information rather than retaining them for recordkeeping. And they have shaken up the National Archives leadership and even ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

This all comes as HuffPost recently estimated that the White House has declined to release transcripts for about 80% of the president’s speeches and interactions with the press so far.

And Trump’s first term involved many extraordinary attacks on recordkeeping, including reportedly routinely discarding papers in the White House fireplace, deriding his staff for taking notes and tearing up documents into tiny pieces. Trump also improperly stored classified material at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.

As The Associated Press observes, the president is legally required to “keep up the historical record.” But retention laws are difficult to enforce, which means that a lot of compliance with them effectively relies on the honor system.

Trump’s view of honor systems, of course, is that they are for suckers. And he knows that he stands to benefit from keeping the public in the dark and avoiding mechanisms for accountability.

Opinion | Why Trump is making an unprecedented effort to scrub the historical record
A president hostile to accountability will try to keep the public — and future generations — in the dark.

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-lowest-historical-documentation-records-president-rcna207710

Newsweek: Woman Faces $1.82M fine for failing to self-deport from US

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A Florida woman has reportedly racked up over $1.82 million in civil penalties after failing to comply with a deportation order issued two decades ago.

The 41-year-old undocumented immigrant from Honduras, who has lived in the United States since at least 2005, was fined $500 per day for each day she remained in the country following her removal order, according to documents obtained by CBS News.

Simply absurd! How many undocumented immigrants have a spare $1.82 mil sitting around? And …

… she … is now the mother of three U.S. citizen children.

Woman Faces $1.82M fine for failing to self-deport from US
The woman, who has lived in the U.S. since at least 2005, was fined $500 each day she remained in the US after her removal order.

https://www.newsweek.com/florida-woman-fined-deportation-immigration-2074184

Daily Caller: Trump Ed Department Rescinds ‘Largest’ Fine Ever Levied Against Christian School

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“Unlike the previous Administration, we will not persecute and prosecute colleges and universities based on their religious affiliation,” Ellen Keast, an ED spokesman, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Trump Administration will continue to ensure every institution of higher education is held accountable based on facts – but Department enforcement will be for the purpose of serving students, not political bias.”

That’s fucking hilarious! Their harassment of students and faculty at Columbia and Harvard universities for supporting Palestinians in Gaza instead of the Israeli theocracy is as political as it gets. King Donald & Co. are a bunch of lying hypocrites.

Trump Ed Department Rescinds ‘Largest’ Fine Ever Levied Against Christian School
The Department of Education on Friday rescinded

https://dailycaller.com/2025/05/19/trump-ed-department-rescinds-largest-fine-ever-levied-against-christian-school

Talking Points Memo: Trump DOJ Admits It Used Bogus Info In Key Deportation Case

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In an important federal case in Massachusetts over whether deportees can be sent to third countries rather than their countries of origin, the Trump administration admitted Friday to a grievous error and managed to compound it in the process.

It’s a bit complicated so let me boil it down to its essentials:

  • Background: A gay Guatemalan national who had a U.S. immigration judge order barring his removal to his home country because he feared continued persecution was instead deported to Mexico in February by the Trump administration, partly on the grounds that he had told ICE that he didn’t fear being sent to Mexico. That was odd because the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G., had previously testified that he had been targeted and raped in Mexico, his lawyers say.
  • Thursday: The Trump DOJ abruptly cancelled the scheduled deposition of an ICE official “whom Defendants previously identified as giving Plaintiff O.C.G. notice of deportation to Mexico and recording his response of lack of fear,” O.C.G.’s lawyers later told the court.
  • Friday: The Trump DOJ filed a “Notice of Errata” admitting that during the judge’s ordered discovery in the case it had been unable to “identify any officer who asked O.C.G. whether he had a fear of return to Mexico.” A key factual element of the Trump administration’s case had evaporated. But it got worse …
  • Sunday: Lawyers for the deportee – who is now in hiding in Guatemala because he fears persecution as a gay man – filed an emergency motion pointing out, among other things, that the government’s filing about its own error revealed the deportees name and other information, further jeopardizing his safety despite a court order anonymizing his identifying information.

Still with me? In the course of admitting its error, the Trump administration outed the gay man who it had wrongfully deported in the first place.

This is what happens when you staff up with a bunch of sycophantic suck-ups and bimbos instead of competent personnel!

Trump DOJ Admits It Used Bogus Info In Key Deportation Case
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/trump-doj-admits-it-used-bogus-info-in-key-deportation-case

Miami Herald: Multiple Democrats Under Investigation — DHS Accused of ‘Lying’

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A confrontation at the Delaney Hall Detention Center in New Jersey may lead to criminal charges against several House Democrats. The incident has prompted an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into alleged assaults on ICE officers during a protest at the facility. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for trespassing after ignoring warnings to leave the premises.

I’ve watched the video of the “assaults”. It was the mayor and House representatives who were assaulted by ICE thugs outside the premises.

Multiple Democrats Under Investigation — DHS Accused of ‘Lying’
More for You

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/multiple-democrats-under-investigation-dhs-accused-of-lying/ss-AA1F6an4

Alternet: ‘Gross usurpation of power’: Judge rips Trump in ruling striking down agency takeover

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In a strongly worded ruling against Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said that the move “represented a gross usurpation of power.”

According to the Hill, the judge also issued an injunction barring officials from DOGE and other Trump administration representatives from accessing USIP’s facilities or systems, effectively halting their involvement with the institute.

The order nullified the administration’s decision to dismiss the USIP board members and its president, confirming that they continue to hold their official roles. The appointment of individuals by DOGE was also overturned, requiring their removal from the board.

The judge said President Donald Trump and his subordinates used “acts of force” and threatened officers.

“The President’s efforts here to take over an organization outside of those bounds, contrary to statute established by Congress and by acts of force and threat using local and federal law enforcement officers, represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better,” Howell said in the ruling.

https://www.alternet.org/usip-takeover-doge