Tag Archives: George Mason University

Washington Post: Many here wanted Trump to enforce immigration law, but ‘it’s going overboard’

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Interviews with more than four dozen people in this swing region encompassing northern Los Angeles County show how much tactics matter in the immigration debate.

Jesus Martinez, a 36-year-old aerospace worker, said he initially supported President Donald Trump’s decision to send the military to quell immigration protests in California. But he has grown increasingly uneasy after seeing images of ICE raids near schools and at workplaces where families are being separated.

“It’s going overboard. It’s too much,” said Martinez, a former Democrat who supported Trump in 2020 and sat out the 2024 election.

“They said only criminals, and now they’re saying, ‘Well, they did come in illegally, so they are criminals,’” he added. “Hispanics or Latinos that voted for Trump, they didn’t think he was going to go after kids.”

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In this working-class and heavily Latino area known for its wildflower blooms, a region that moved toward Trump in the 2024 election, voters from both parties voiced support for Trump’s promises to deport immigrants who are here illegally, especially those with criminal records. But they drew lines — some over the scope of those deportations and, to a lesser extent, over his decision to crack down on immigration protesters with the military.

“When you already have aggressive people and then you’re sending in people like that, I feel like it just makes it kind of worse,” said Christian Strand, a 19-year-old EMT from Palmdale, a majority-Latino city, referring to the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines. “It’s creating more of a pushback, because the aggression is rising.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/17/trump-california-immigration-voters

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/many-here-wanted-trump-to-enforce-immigration-law-but-it-s-going-overboard/ar-AA1GUEAR

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

USA Today: Trump uses Supreme Court birthright citizenship case in bid to limit judges’ power

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President Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to limit the ability of judges to put his policies on hold while they’re being challenged.

Judges across the country have blocked some of President Donald Trump’s biggest policy changes − roadblocks the president has called “toxic and unprecedented.”

Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to fix that.

How inclined the justices might be to do so could become apparent on May 15 when the court considers Trump’s move to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States regardless of whether their parents are citizens or permanent residents.

The president hasn’t yet asked the high court to consider the legality of his policy – which was called “blatantly unconstitutional” by the first judge to review it.

Instead, Trump wants the justices to narrow the scope of multiple court orders keeping his new rules on hold until the citizenship policy has been fully litigated.

The administration argues that, for now, Trump should be able to impose the change on everyone except the 18 parents named in the lawsuits or, at most, any member of two immigrant rights groups or residents of a state that challenged the policy.

Trump uses Supreme Court birthright citizenship case in bid to limit judges’ power
President Trump is counting on the Supreme Court to limit the ability of judges to put his policies on hold while they’re being challenged.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/11/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court-trump/83541130007

NBC News: Trump admin’s threat to suspend core U.S. legal right sparks outcry, alarm

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Stephen “Goebbels” Miller said the president is “actively looking at” suspending the right for people to see a judge if detained in the U.S. Legal scholars say that Congress, not Trump, has that power.

Legal experts and Democrats expressed growing alarm over the weekend that Trump administration officials are openly discussing unilaterally suspending habeas corpus — a bedrock American legal right — without the approval of Congress.

The writ of habeas corpus, which dates back centuries, grants anyone detained in the U.S. the right to see a judge, challenge the government’s evidence against them and present a defense.

But White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen “Goebbels” Miller downplayed its significance on Friday and suggesting that the administration could move to suspend it unilaterally. “That’s an option we’re actively looking at,” “Goebbels” Miller told reporters at the White House.

Trump admin’s threat to suspend core U.S. legal right sparks outcry and alarm
Stephen Miller said the president is “actively looking at” suspending the right for people to see a judge if detained in the U.S. Legal scholars say that Congress, not Trump, has that power.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/legal-experts-habeas-corpus-stephen-miller-rcna206130

National Security Journal: Democrat Says Trump Is ‘Selling Access’ and That’s Impeachable

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On April 25, Ossoff spoke to a crowd of fired up Georgians that are already tired of Trump and want his ouster now instead of later. Ossoff said that Trump is giving White House “audience availability” to people who buy his “meme coin.” Ossoff believes this action places the president in impeachment territory.

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” Ossoff claimed.

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He reminded the audience that an impeachment proceeding would not happen with a Republican-majority in the House, but voters could definitely make a change to the composition of the lower chamber in Midterm elections in 2026.

Yes, the 2026 mid-terms are coming!

Democrat Says Trump Is ‘Selling Access’ and That’s Impeachable
A vulnerable U.S. lawmaker is one of the first Democratic senators to call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Georgian Jon Ossoff is considered one of the U.S. Senate’s most beatable members and he is making the rounds in townhalls in his home state. His liberal constituents want him to campaign harder during his re-election bid […]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-says-trump-is-selling-access-and-that-s-impeachable/ar-AA1DMzBz

CNN: IRS making plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status

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The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.

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President Donald Trump in recent days raised the idea of punishing the Ivy League university for not complying with what the administration has sought to portray as a campaign to fight antisemitism.

Big problem here: Just as the First Amendment protects what you say, it also prohibits others from forcing you to support their causes. Whatever the administration has in mind “as a campaign to fight antisemitism”, Harvard’s participation cannot be compelled.

IRS making plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status
The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/irs-making-plans-to-rescind-harvard-s-tax-exempt-status/ar-AA1D3yDY