Tag Archives: Civil War

The Hill: Why are ICE agents running amok? Because they can. 

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As the Trump administration pushes for more mass deportations, law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security are suddenly everywhere. 

In San Diego, Homeland Security officers conducted a SWAT-style raid on a restaurant, handcuffing 19 employees over an hour and slamming the manager against a wall in the process. Eventually, they arrested four people. The raid was so heavy-handed that the officers had to deploy flashbang grenades to escape from the angry crowd that gathered in response.

Even members of Congress aren’t safe. Last week, Homeland Security officers forced their way into Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D) New York office without a warrant. When one of the staffers protested, she was handcuffed and detained. 

The cases you hear about are only the tip of the iceberg. Federal officers are fanning out across the country, conducting raids, traffic stops, even scooping people up at courthouses when they appear for immigration hearings and carting them away in leg irons and shackles — harsh treatment that you seldom see even when felons are arrested. 

This heavy-handedness and cruelty isn’t a glitch — it’s intentional, as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, attempt to frighten immigrants into leaving the country. Even legal residents and American citizens are getting caught up in the crackdown.

And the worst part is, while things like barging into a congressman’s office and detaining his staffers aren’t legal, there is nothing anyone can do about it. If Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents force their way into your house without a warrant, slap you around and detain your family at gunpoint while conducting an illegal search, you have no way of getting your constitutional claims into federal court. As a practical matter, these agents are above the law and cannot be held accountable for violating your constitutional rights. 

Why are ICE agents running amok? Because they can.

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5335758-homeland-security-raid-immigration

Talking Points Memo: The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

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The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.

When top Trump adviser Stephen Miller threatened on May 9 that the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus in response to an “invasion” from undocumented immigrants, he was operating on a fringe legal theory that a right-wing faction has been working to legitimize for more than a decade.

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Hard-liners have referred to immigrants as “invaders” as long as the U.S. has had immigration. By 2022, invasion rhetoric, which had previously been relegated to white nationalist circles, had become such a staple of Republican campaign ads that most of the public agreed an invasion of the U.S. via the southern border was underway.

Now, however, the claim that the U.S. is under invasion has become the legal linchpin of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

The claim is Trump’s central justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 140 Venezuelans to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison, without due process. (The administration cited different legal authority for the remaining deportees.) The Trump administration contends they are members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is directing to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Lawyers and families of many of the deportees have presented evidence the prisoners are not even members of Tren de Aragua.

The contention is also the throughline of Trump’s day one executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” That document calls for the expansion of immigration removal proceedings without court hearings and for legal attacks against sanctuary jurisdictions, places that refuse to commit local resources to immigration enforcement.

So far, no court has bought the idea that the U.S. is truly under invasion….

And therein lies the problem: The Trump regime is off pursuing an unconstitutional tangent to solve a problem that is improperly framed as an “invasion”.

It’s a long well-researched article. Please click on the link below and read the entire article.

The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
This article first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-invasion-invention-the-far-rights-long-legal-battle-to-make-immigrants-the-enemy

NBC News: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem struggles to define habeas corpus at Senate hearing

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“Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” Noem said. “That’s incorrect,” a Democratic senator responded.

My God, how stupid is this woman?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem mangled a response to a question about habeas corpus at a Senate hearing Tuesday, referring to the constitutional right of due process as a “right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Noem about the constitutional protection after noting that White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters earlier this month that the administration was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge an arrest or imprisonment.

“I want to clarify your position,” Hassan asked. “What is habeas corpus?”

“Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to … ,” Noem responded before she was cut off by Hassan.

“That’s incorrect,” the senator said.

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” Hassan said, calling it a “foundational right.”

“So Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?” she asked.

Noem responded, “I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.” 

Uhh … no, he doesn’t.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem struggles to define habeas corpus at Senate hearing
“Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” Noem said. “That’s incorrect,” a Democratic senator responded.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcna207986