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Alternet: One Trump enabler has done more damage than the rest of them combined | Opinion

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John Roberts came to the U.S. Supreme Court professing the best of intentions. In his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, he promised to serve as chief justice in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” Two years later, in an interview with law professor Jeffrey Rosen, he mused that the court’s many acrimonious 5-to-4 decisions could lead to “a steady wasting away of the notion of the rule of law” and ultimately undermine the court’s perceived legitimacy as a nonpartisan institution.

Roberts said that as the court’s leader, he would stress a “team dynamic,” encouraging his colleagues to join narrow, unanimous decisions rather than sweeping split rulings.

“You do have to put [the Justices] in a situation where they will appreciate, from their own point of view, having the court acquire more legitimacy, credibility, that they will benefit from the shared commitment to unanimity in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise,” he reasoned.

Today, that reasoning is on the cutting-room floor. Although the court’s conservatives today outnumber its liberals by a 6-to-3 margin, the tribunal remains fractured and is widely regarded as just another political branch of government. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in mid-June, neither Republicans nor Democrats see the nation’s top judicial body as neutral. Just 20% of respondents to the poll agreed that the Supreme Court is unbiased while 58% disagreed.

Instead of healing divisions on the bench, Roberts and his Republican confederates old and new, including three justices nominated by Donald Trump, have issued a blistering succession of polarizing and reactionary majority opinions on voting rights, gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, environmental protection, gun control, abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance, the use of dark money in politics, equality for LGBTQ+ people, and perhaps most disastrous of all, presidential immunity.

The court’s reputation has also been tainted by a series of ethics scandals involving its two most right-wing members, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, over the receipt of unreported gifts from Republican megadonors. Alito came under added fire for flying an American flag upside down (sometimes used as a symbol of distress at mostly left-wing protests) outside his Virginia home just a few months after the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

The court’s lurch to the far-right accelerated in the recently concluded 2024-2025 term, driven in large part by the immunity ruling — Trump v. United States, penned by Roberts himself — and the authoritarian power grab that it has unleashed. The decision effectively killed special counsel Jack Smith’s election-subversion case against Trump. It also altered the landscape of constitutional law and the separation of powers, endowing presidents with absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken pursuant to their enumerated constitutional powers, such as pardoning federal offenses and removing executive officers from their departments; and presumptive immunity for all other “official acts” undertaken within the “outer perimeter” of their official duties.

Seemingly emboldened by the ruling, Trump has made good on his boast to be a “dictator on day one” of his second stint in the White House, releasing a torrent of executive orders and proclamations aimed at dismantling federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs; eviscerating environmental regulations; imposing sanctions on liberal law firms and elite universities; creating the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); authorizing mass deportations; and ending birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, among dozens of other edicts.

Trump’s executive orders have generated a myriad of legal challenges, some of which reached the Supreme Court this past term as emergency, or “shadow docket,” appeals. The challenges placed Roberts and his conservative benchmates in the uncomfortable but entirely predictable position of balancing the judiciary’s independence as a co-equal branch of government with their fundamental ideological support of Trump’s policy agenda. By the term’s end, it was clear that ideology had won the day.

One of the first signs that Trump 2.0 would cause renewed headaches for the court occurred at the outset of the president’s March 4, 2025, address to a joint session of Congress. As he made his way to the podium, Trump shook hands with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy and with Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Elena Kagan. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary until he approached Chief Justice Roberts, whose hand he took, and with a pat on the shoulder could be heard saying, “Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget.”

Donald Trump greets John Roberts at the U.S. Capitol. Win McNamee/Pool via REUTERS

Whether Trump was thanking Roberts for his immunity ruling was ambiguous, but on March 18, Roberts was compelled to issue a rare public rebuke of the president after Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for issuing two temporary restraining orders (TROs) that halted the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said in a statement released by the court.

The rebuke, however, came too late to stop the removal of two planeloads of Venezuelans to El Salvador in apparent defiance of Boasberg’s TROs, sparking concerns that Trump might ultimately defy the high court as well, and trigger a full-scale constitutional crisis.

The deportation controversy, along with several others, quickly came before the Supreme Court. On April 7, by a 5-to-4 vote with Justice Barrett in dissent, the majority granted the administration’s request to lift Boasberg’s TROs and remove the cases for further proceedings to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, where the named plaintiffs and other potential class members in the litigation (who had not yet been deported) were being detained under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). The court’s four-page per curiam order (Trump v. J.G.G.) was unsigned, and, in a small defeat for the administration, also instructed that the detainees had the right to receive advance “notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal” by means of habeas corpus petitions.

In a related unsigned eight-page ruling (A.A.R.P. v. Trump) issued on May 16, this time by a 7-to-2 vote with Justices Thomas and Alito in dissent, the court blocked the administration from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members held in northern Texas under the AEA, but also held that the detainees could be deported “under other lawful authorities.”

In another unsigned immigration decision released on April 10 (Noem v. Abrego Garcia), the court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a resident of Maryland married to a U.S. citizen who had been sent to his native El Salvador because of an “administrative error.” Ábrego García was brought back to the United States in early June, and was indicted on charges of smuggling migrants and conspiracy.

The court waited until June 23 to release its most draconian immigration decision of the term (DHS v. D.V.D.), holding 6 to 3 that noncitizens under final orders of removal can be deported to third-party countries, even ones with records of severe human-rights violations. And on June 27, in a highly technical but very important procedural ruling (Trump v. CASA) on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, the court held 6 to 3 that district court judges generally lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions. Although the decision did not address the constitutionality of the executive order or the substantive scope of the 14th Amendment’s provision extending citizenship to virtually all persons born in the country, it sent three legal challenges to the order back to three district court judges who had blocked the order from taking effect. The litigation continues.

The immigration cases were decided on the court’s “shadow docket,” a term of art coined by University of Chicago professor William Baude in a 2015 law review article. It describes emergency appeals that come before the court outside of its standard “merits” docket that are typically resolved rapidly, without complete briefing, detailed opinions, or, except in the CASA case, oral arguments.

The Supreme Court has a long history of entertaining emergency appeals—such as last-minute requests for stays of execution in death penalty cases—but emergency requests in high-profile cases proliferated during Trump’s first presidency. According to Georgetown University law professor and shadow-docket scholar Steve Vladeck, the first Trump Administration sought emergency relief 41 times, with the Supreme Court granting relief in 28 of those cases. By comparison, the George W. Bush and Obama administrations filed a combined total of eight emergency relief requests over a16-year period while the Biden administration filed 19 applications across four years.

Fueled by Trump’s authoritarian overreach, the court’s shadow docket exploded to more than 100 cases in 2024-2025 while the merits docket shrank to 56. Not surprisingly, the upsurge has generated significant pushback, with a variety of critics contending the shadow docket diminishes the court’s already limited transparency, and yields hastily written and poorly reasoned decisions that are often used by the conservative wing of the bench to expand presidential power, essentially adopting the “unitary executive” theory as a basic principle of constitutional law. Popularized in the 1980s, the unitary theory posits that all executive power is concentrated in the person of the president, and that the president should be free to act with minimal congressional and judicial oversight.

Although shadow-docket rulings are preliminary in nature, they sometimes have the same practical effect as final decisions on the merits. For example, on May 22, in an unsigned two-page decision (Trump v. Wilcox), the Supreme Court stayed two separate judgments issued by two different U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judges that had blocked the Trump administration from firing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) without cause. The decision remanded the cases back to the D.C. Circuit and the district courts, but even as the board members continue to litigate their unlawful discharge claims, they remain out of work.

Shadow-docket rulings also have an impact on Supreme Court precedents, often foreshadowing how the court will ultimately rule on the merits of important issues. The Wilcox decision called into question the precedential effect of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, decided in 1935, which held that Congress has the constitutional power to enact laws limiting a president’s authority to fire executive officers of independent agencies like the NLRB, which oversees private-sector collective bargaining, and the MSPB, which adjudicates federal employee adverse-action claims.

The three appointed to the court by Democrats dissented. Writing for herself and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Kagan accused the Republican-appointed majority of political bias and acting in bad faith. “For 90 years,” she charged, “Humphrey’s Executor v. United States… has stood as a precedent of this court. And not just any precedent. Humphrey’s undergirds a significant feature of American governance: bipartisan administrative bodies carrying out expertise-based functions with a measure of independence from presidential control.”

Quoting Alexander Hamilton, she added, “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents.” She castigated the majority for recklessly rushing to judgment, writing, “Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law.”

The court also issued other pro-Trump emergency shadow-docket rulings in the 2024-2025 term, permitting the administration to bar transgender people from serving in the military and to withhold $65 million in teacher training grants to states that include DEI initiatives in their operations and curriculums. The court similarly used shadow-docket rulings to endorse DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration records and to insulate DOGE from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Yet despite the court’s deference, Trump complained about his treatment at critical junctures throughout the term. After the shadow-docket ruling blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act in May, he took to Truth Social, his social media platform, writing in all caps, “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” It also has been widely reported that Trump has raged in private against his own appointees—especially Justice Barrett—for not being sufficiently supportive of his executive orders and initiatives, and his personal interests.

Meanwhile, back on the merits docket, with Roberts at the helm and with Barrett and the conservatives united, the court has continued to tack mostly to the right, giving Trump nearly everything he wants. On June 18, Roberts delivered a resounding victory to the Make America Great Again movement with a 6-to-3 opinion (United States v. Skrmetti) that upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender transition medical care for minors. The decision will have wide-ranging implications for 26 other states that have enacted similar bans. Echoing the sentiments of many liberal legal commentators, Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern described the ruling as “an incoherent mess of contradiction and casuistry, a travesty of legal writing that injects immense, gratuitous confusion into the law of equal protection.”

Joe Biden delivers remarks on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

In other high-stakes merits cases, the court, by a vote of 6 to 3, approved South Carolina’s plan to remove Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program because of the group’s status as an abortion provider; and held 6 to 3 that parents have a religious right to withdraw their children from instruction on days that “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks are read.

Progressives searching for a thin ray of hope for the future might take some solace in the spirited performance of Justice Jackson, the panel’s most junior member, who has become a dominant force in oral arguments, and a consistent voice in support of social justice. Dissenting from a 7-to-2 decision (Diamond Alternative Energy LLC v. Environmental Protection Agency) that weakened the Clean Air Act, she ripped the majority for giving “fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this court than ordinary citizens.”

Eras of Supreme Court history are generally defined by the accomplishments of the court’s chief justices. The court of John Marshall, the longest-serving chief justice who held office from 1801 to 1835, is remembered for establishing the principle of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. The Court of Earl Warren, whose tenure stretched from 1953 to 1969, is remembered for expanding constitutional rights and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The Roberts Court will be remembered for reversing many of the Warren era’s advances. But unless it suddenly changes course, it will also be remembered as the court that surrendered its independence and neutrality to an authoritarian president.

One Trump enabler has done more damage than the rest of them combined | Opinion

https://www.alternet.org/trump-enabler

Style on Main: ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing

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Children are supposed to enjoy their formative years through play and conversation with their families and communities, growing up happy and successful in life. However, some of them experience tragic realities at a very young age… a world full of problems and negativity. Kids who are separated due to immigration issues currently face this harsh and confusing reality. To be placed in a cold room full of adults who keep interrogating them can be stressful. What did they do to be there? Are they supposed to be in such a place?

The family thought they were safe. And they even did everything right. Followed every rule, attended every hearing, and filled out papers by memory. Yet, as the mother walked out of the immigration courthouse with her two children, a 6-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister, the officers (not in uniform) were there, waiting by the door. No warning, no chance to say goodbye, the family was just arrested there on the courthouse steps. They’d been locked up somewhere without any warrant, plus their protection case had been denied. It was a double whammy for the family, and that was just the beginning.

The arrest was just the start. The worst part? The little 6-year-old boy wasn’t just any child, he was fighting a severe form of leukemia, which would be treatable if medicine and treatments were given regularly. But since they were locked in detention, he couldn’t do anything. His treatment eventually stopped, with fewer and fewer chances of beating cancer. According to their mother, his 9-year-old sister then watched as her younger brother got sicker, from crying herself to sleep every night because of extreme stress to sometimes keeping herself awake.

This story isn’t just an isolated case. Imagine babies learning to grow up in cages and toddlers who’ve never even played in real playgrounds. Right now, U.S. immigration centers are holding thousands of children. Some are barely out of diapers…like a 3-year-old kid who spent almost two years in a detention center in Pennsylvania, taking her first steps and learning her first words behind bars instead of in her mother’s arms. These things are now part of those children’s core memories and have left deep scars; they then develop depression and PTSD as they grow older. This pattern questions the humanity of these practices and their impact on young minds.

Behind locked doors is a different kind of tragedy. Families are crowded into dirty rooms like animals in cages, without enough food, or sometimes, a spoiled or cold one. And with the bathrooms smelling bad, the kids would rather hold their pee for hours than use them. No one cares if anyone gets sick. No medicines or even doctors to be found near them. These little ones suffer together, crying constantly, feeling the pain in their bodies as they stay in a strange place. It’s as if their childhood dies a little more each day.

After their release, the mother decided to file a federal lawsuit, saying that the officials violated her family’s constitutional rights by ignoring her son’s need to treat his life-threatening cancer and even detaining them even though they followed all legal immigration requirements. Her lawyers say that the case will show everyone a worrying pattern, that even families who abide by the law can be arrested without any due process. Plus, putting a child’s life at risk and scarring their siblings. Advocates deemed this necessary, despite the fact that the mother speaking out isn’t really well-known, just a simple immigrant trying to pass through their asylum case. They hope that the lawsuit will teach the defendants responsibility and accountability.

After the arrest, and without any notice, the authorities loaded the family onto a transport and drove them from Los Angeles all the way to a remote Texas detention facility, about 1,400 miles away from their so-called home. This destroyed the routines the sick boy relied on. His cancer doctors in California, friends, and family members who might help them were already far, far away from them. While immigration officers claimed that the transfer was necessary for “operational reasons,” it doesn’t hide the fact that the move was deliberately cruel, ripping away the family’s sense of a normal life.

Data shows that 9 out of 10 detained children are locked away longer than federal law allows, with an average of 43 days behind bars. For kids, that feels like an eternity. And even once the gates opened for them, it didn’t erase the scars that were made. Children like the boy and his sister now carry invisible wounds that may never fully heal and will be a part of their lives as adults. Both of them now struggle with how life made them and probably have nightmares during their sleep now and then. Doctors say that trauma can last and shape a person’s life forever.

When the news picked up the family’s story, the public exploded all over social media like a landmine. Protesters gathered outside, and politicians demanded answers. The family was suddenly released within days of the story going viral. No court order, no legal victory, just the public pressure that the immigration office couldn’t ignore. This story proved to be a pivotal point for society, that when people speak up, even the most powerful groups will listen. It wasn’t the legal system that released the family; it was the voice of common people who refused to stay silent.

The case could change how a part of the system operates, including new rules protecting sick children in detention and changes to broken immigration court procedures. Even mental health researchers are demanding immediate policy changes, as there’s no safe way to lock up children. This story may well inspire the agencies to make broader efforts to end or drastically limit family detention policies, pushing for more humane alternatives for countless children and families as they scour through America’s complicated immigration system. Hopes are high for everyone that a new path will be forged through humanity and justice.

ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing
YouTube – Nigerian Center Children are supposed to enjoy their formative years through play and conversation with their families and communities, growing up happy and successful in life. However, some of them experience tragic realities
ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing

Independent: ‘Taco Thursday’: Social media users taunt Trump after he extends Mexico trade deadline

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The president once again backed down from increasing import taxes on Mexican goods

Donald Trump’s pausing of higher import taxes on a wide range of Mexican products a day before they were set to start saw the president mocked on social media with the now-familiar “TACO” taunt.

The nickname TACO, short for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” stems from the president’s habit of making tariff threats, resulting in a drop in the markets, only for him to change course and see the markets rebound.

Trump announced the move in a Truth Social post following a phone call with Mexican President Gloria Sheinbaum on Thursday.

He said the conversation had been “very successful in that, more and more, we are getting to know and understand each other” and suggested that the American trade relationship with Mexico is different from other countries because of the complexity of the border situation.

“We have agreed to extend, for a 90 Day period, the exact same Deal as we had for the last short period of time, namely, that Mexico will continue to pay a 25% Fentanyl Tariff, 25% Tariff on Cars, and 50% Tariff on Steel, Aluminum, and Copper,” he added.

The reaction from some of Trump’s most fervent critics was swift, predictable, and Mexican food-themed, invoking the TACO nickname investors have bestowed on the president for his economic flip-flopping.

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press team was quick to pounce after Trump’s announcement hit Truth Social, writing that it was “TACO Thursday.”

Another critic, writer Paul Rudnick, posted a dual screen grab noting headlines stating that Trump had said he wouldn’t extend his tariff deadlines just a day before he announced yet another extension.

And a Democratic congressman, Rep. Chuy Garcia of Texas, twisted the knife a bit further, pointing out on X that consumers — not the Mexican government — pay the tariffs at issue.

Another X user, added:” SHE OWNS tRUMP …TACO THURSDAY.”

Never forget that at the end of the day it’s the consumer — you and I — who pay the tariffs, and that means INFLATION.

‘Taco Thursday’: Critics taunt Trump after he extends Mexico trade deadline
The president once again backed down from increasing import taxes on Mexican goods

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mexico-trade-deadline-taco-thursday-b2800002.html

NBC News: ICE efforts to poach local officers are angering some local law enforcement leaders

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An email to officers whose agencies partner with ICE has even some sheriffs who support the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown seeing red.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is newly flush with billions from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” spending legislation and under pressure to rapidly hire 10,000 new agents. But one tactic it recently tried to do that hiring — aggressively recruiting new agents from some of its most trusted local law enforcement partners — may have alienated some of the leaders it needs to help execute what the Trump administration wants to be the largest mass deportation in US history.

“We’re their force multipliers, and this is the thanks we get for helping them do their job?” Polk County, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd said in an interview with NBC News. Judd said he’s not happy about a recruitment email sent by ICE’s deputy director to hundreds of his deputies and he blamed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees ICE.

“Kristi Noem needs to get on her big girl pants and do what’s right. She needs to make sure that there’s an apology,” said Judd, who also made clear that he wants to “support President [Donald] Trump’s mission.”

NBC News spoke to local law enforcement leaders in four states whose agencies participate in 287(g) and whose deputies were being targeted for ICE recruitment.

The recruitment email those agencies’ officers received, sent earlier this week, appears to have targeted law enforcement officers whose agencies participate in ICE’s 287(g) program, under which local officers are deputized to help in immigration enforcement.

The email from Sheahan, which NBC News has obtained, reads in part, “As someone who is currently supporting ICE through the 287(g) program, you understand the unique responsibility we carry in protecting our communities and upholding federal law. Your experience in state or local law enforcement brings invaluable insight and skills to this mission —qualities we need now more than ever.”

The email also touts potential $50,000 signing bonuses as an incentive for joining ICE and links to a government recruitment website featuring an image of Uncle Sam, the headline “AMERICA NEEDS YOU,” and the possibility of up to $60,000 in student loan repayment beyond those signing bonuses.

“ICE actively trying to use our partnership to recruit our personnel is wrong and we have expressed our concern to ICE leadership,” the Pinellas County, Florida Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to NBC News.

The sheriff in Pinellas County is a Republican, as is Polk County’s Judd.

“It was bad judgement that will cause an erosion of a relationship that has been improving of late. And it’s going to take some getting over and it’s gonna take leadership at DHS to really take stock cause hey, they need state and locals,” Jonathan Thompson, the executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said in an interview with NBC News.

Thompson said that the association has heard from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies about the recruitment emails. He also said that the group has not heard from DHS since the emails were flagged to the association, and that he intends to send a “very stern note” to ICE.

“This is inappropriate behavior of a partner organization,” Thompson said. “We’re all on the same boat. And you just don’t treat friends or partners like this.”

One Florida chief of police who did not want to be named out of concern his department could face retaliation said departments that have partnered with the federal government now fear they could lose their best officers.

“Now you know why everybody’s so pissed,” the chief said.

“This is like the transfer portal in college sports,” the chief said, adding, “We see people leave us because they believe they can make more money at other locations… Law enforcement has always been a calling. Now it’s a job.”

The DHS press office did not respond to questions about local law enforcement concerns but provided NBC News with a statement that it attributed to a senior DHS official: “ICE is recruiting law enforcement, veterans, and other patriots who want to serve their country … This includes local law enforcement, veterans, and our 287(g) partners who have already been trained and have valuable law enforcement experience. Additionally, more than $500 million from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will go to increasing our 287(g) partnerships with state and local law enforcement.”

The sheriff’s office in Forsyth County, Georgia told NBC News that the Atlanta ICE office “sent an apology” for the recruitment email.

Not all sheriffs are upset with the recruitment effort. In fact some say they support it.

Thaddeus Cleveland, the sheriff of Terrell County, Texas, said, “I think if someone wants to better their life, better their career, you know, look towards the long years, the long game, retirement, there’s nothing better than the US government to go out and have a successful career.”

Cleveland, who has just four deputies on his staff, admits he can’t compete with the $50,000 bonuses that the agency is offering.

“We may not be able to turn around and hire somebody the next day. It may take a few weeks. It may take a few months. But again, I support, you know, someone wanting to pursue something they’re interested in. I may end up having to work a little more, which is okay.”

Goliad County Texas Sheriff Roy Boyd also said he’s not upset about the recruitment, and noted that his office also has to deal with the state recruiting new troopers from his department.

“We can’t compete with the salaries of the state and the feds,” he said.

ICE efforts to poach local officers anger some local law enforcement leaders
An email to officers whose agencies partner with ICE has even some sheriffs who support the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown seeing red.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ice-efforts-poach-local-officers-are-angering-local-law-enforcement-le-rcna222335

Washington Post: Scientist on green card detained for a week without explanation, lawyer says

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Tae Heung Kim, a Korean citizen studying in the United States, is being held in San Francisco after returning from his brother’s wedding overseas.

A Korean-born researcher and longtime U.S. legal permanent resident has spent the past week detained by immigration officials at San Francisco International Airport without explanation and has been denied access to an attorney, according to his lawyer.

Tae Heung “Will” Kim, 40, has lived in the United States since he was 5 and is a green-card holder pursuing his PhD at Texas A&M University, where he is researching a vaccine for Lyme disease, said his attorney, Eric Lee. Immigration officials detained Kim at a secondary screening point July 21 after he returned from a two-week visit to South Korea for his younger brother’s wedding.

Lee said the government has not told him or Kim’s family why it detained Kim, and immigration officials have refused to let Kim speak to an attorney or communicate with his family members directly except for a brief call to his mother Friday. In 2011, Kim faced a minor marijuana possession charge in Texas, Lee said, but he fulfilled a community service requirement and successfully petitioned for nondisclosure to seal the offense from the public record.

“If a green card holder is convicted of a drug offense, violating their status, that person is issued a Notice to Appear and CBP coordinates detention space with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said Tuesday in a statement to The Washington Post. “This alien is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

Aside from a brief phone call, the only other contact Kim’s family has had with him is through what they believe to be secondhand text messages — probably an immigration official texting them from Kim’s phone in his presence. When relatives asked via text if Kim is sleeping on the floor or if the lights remain on all day, Lee said, the reply from Kim’s phone read: “Don’t worry about it.”

When Lee asked a CBP supervisor in a phone call if the Fifth and Sixth amendments — which establish rights to due process and the right to counsel — applied to Kim, the supervisor replied “no,” according to Lee.

“If the Constitution doesn’t apply to somebody who’s lived in this country for 35 years and is a green-card holder — and only left the country for a two-week vacation — that means [the government] is basically arguing that the Constitution doesn’t apply to anybody who’s been in this country for less time than him,” Lee said Monday.

Representatives for CBP and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about the supervisor’s alleged comment about Kim’s constitutional rights.

President Donald Trump has made aggressive immigration enforcement a signature of his second term, promising to root out violent criminals who are in the country without authorization. But the crackdowns have in practice swept up undocumented immigrants with little or no criminal history, as well as documented immigrants, like Kim, who hold valid visas or green cards.

Lee, the attorney, said that with no details from immigration officials or direct access to Kim, he and Kim’s family could only speculate on the reason he was detained, though Lee had believed it is probably tied to the 2011 drug charge. But immigration law has a long-established waiver process that allows officials to overlook certain minor crimes that would otherwise threaten a legal permanent resident’s status. Lee said Kim easily meets the criteria for a waiver.

“Why detain him when he’s got this waiver that is available to him?” Lee said.

Other foreign-born researchers detained by the Trump administration have included scholars accused of being “national security threats” because they expressed views opposing U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. In another case, a Russian-born researcher studying at Harvard University was charged for allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the country.

At Texas A&M, Kim’s primary research has focused on finding a vaccine for Lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria spread through tick bites. He began his doctoral studies there in summer 2021 after earning a bachelor’s degree in ocean engineering from the university in 2007, Texas A&M said in a statement to The Post.

As Kim’s family waits for answers, his mother, Yehoon “Sharon” Lee, said she worries about his health and if he’s eating well — “mother’s concerns,” she said through an interpreter.

“I’m most concerned about his medical condition. He’s had asthma ever since he was younger,” Sharon Lee added. “I don’t know if he has enough medication. He carries an inhaler, but I don’t know if it’s enough, because he’s been there a week.”

Sharon Lee, 65, and her husband came to the U.S. on business visas in the 1980s, and she eventually became a naturalized citizen. But by then, Kim and his younger brother had aged out of the automatic citizenship benefit for minor children whose parents are naturalized. The brothers are legal permanent residents and have spent most of their lives in the United States.

“He’s a good son, very gentle,” Sharon Lee said of Tae Heung Kim, noting that he is a hard worker and known for checking on his neighbors. After his father died of cancer, Kim stepped up to help take care of his mother and the family’s doll-manufacturing business.

After more than three decades in the U.S., Sharon Lee said her son’s predicament has saddened and surprised her.

“I immigrated here to the States — I thought I understood it was a country of equal rights where the Constitution applies equally,” she said.

She still believes the U.S. is a country of opportunity and second chances. But she said vulnerable immigrants must learn about immigration law to protect themselves. In her son’s case, that was the hotline at the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, an advocacy group for Koreans and Asian Americans.

Eric Lee, Kim’s attorney, said there’s a dark irony to the Trump administration’s detention of someone like him.

“This is somebody whose research is going to save countless lives if allowed to continue — farmers who are at risk of getting Lyme disease,” Lee said. “Trump always talks about how much he loves the great farmers of America. Well, Tae is somebody who can save farmers’ lives.”

Scientist on green card detained for a week without explanation, lawyer says
A Korean citizen studying in Texas on a green card was detained in San Francisco after a trip overseas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/29/korean-scientist-green-card-detained

Scientist on green card detained for a week without explanation, lawyer says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/scientist-on-green-card-detained-for-a-week-without-explanation-lawyer-says/ar-AA1JuESE

Business Insider: Automakers are starting to reveal how much Trump’s tariffs are costing them

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  • Carmakers are tallying up an eye-watering bill from Trump’s tariffs.
  • Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis said it expected the levies on imported vehicles to cost it around $1.4 billion this year.
  • General Motors, Tesla, and VW have also reported big tariff hits in earnings in the past few weeks.

The auto industry is still trying to unravel a tangled tariff web, and the bill just keeps getting bigger.

Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis became the latest automaker to forecast a heavy hit from Trump’s tariffs on imported vehicles on Tuesday.

The Chrysler maker said that it expected tariffs to cost it around €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) in the second half of this year, after a €300 million impact in the first half of 2025.

Stellantis, which builds Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep models in its factories in Canada and Mexico, has been hit hard by the Trump administration’s 25% tariff on vehicles and car parts imported into the US.

Other automakers are also feeling the pain. General Motors, which builds models for the US market in Korea, Mexico, and Canada, said last week that the tariffs had cut $1.1 billion off its profits in the last quarter.

CEO Mary Barra said that GM was working to reduce its tariff exposure and build up its US manufacturing presence, but the company warned that the worst was still to come. GM estimated that the tariffs could cost it between $4 and $5 billion this year.

Trump’s recent trade deals have slashed the tariffs on importing cars from Japan and Europe to the US from 25% to 15%, but manufacturers still have to deal with a hodgepodge of import restrictions and fees.

The 25% tax on automobile parts means that even carmakers who build their cars in the US face a serious tariff headache.

Tesla, which has factories in California and Texas but still uses some imported components, told investors last week it incurred a tariff-related cost of $300 million in the previous quarter, with CFO Vaibhav Taneja warning that costs are likely to increase in the coming months.

European manufacturer VW also said last week it had suffered a $1.1 billion tariff-related hit in the first half of this year, while Swedish carmaker Volvo took a $1.2 billion impairment charge in part due to the escalating cost of the levies.

Experts and analysts have warned that many of the costs facing automakers will be passed on to US consumers in the form of higher car prices and fewer models.

A study by the Center for Automotive Research published in April found that the 25% tariffs on imported cars and auto parts would hike the cost of vehicles produced in the US by over $4,000 and imported vehicles by nearly $9,000.

Automakers are starting to reveal how much Trump’s tariffs are costing them
Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis became the latest automaker to forecast a heavy hit from Trump’s tariffs on imported vehicles on Tuesday.

https://www.businessinsider.com/automakers-are-revealing-how-much-trumps-tariffs-are-costing-them-2025-7

Boing Boing: American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”

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You know you’ve fallen into fascist territory when ICE agents arrest a U.S. citizen who has no criminal record and then tell him to shave his beard. Which is what happened to a 33-year-old Houston man whose looks got him arrested and detained.

Miguel Ponce Jr, born in Texas, was on his way to work when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over. Even after showing his valid ID and explaining that he was an American citizen with a clean record, he was hauled away. The government goons handcuffed him and detained him at “another location” for hours.

“I pretty much felt kidnapped,” he told KHOU via Newsweek. “[They] told me I have a deportation order, put me in handcuffs, and took me to another location.”

No amount of explaining how he was born in College Station and had never been arrested penetrated these ICE agents — who did not have a warrant. Insisting that he looked like a violent criminal on their wanted list, they continued to interrogate him. Until, that is, he finally showed them his tattoos — which did not match those of the suspect.

That’s when the incompetent agents sent him home, not with an apology but with some strong advice: “They said: ‘Shave your beard off so we won’t mistake you again,'” Ponce recounted. When MAGA talks about their freedoms, choosing how to look has apparently been removed from the list.

From Newsweek:

A man says he was left shocked and offended after immigration agents allegedly asked him to shave off his beard after a case of mistaken identity, a request he found both humiliating and unjustified.

“I’ll never shave my beard, that was disrespectful, the audacity,” Ponce told Newsweek in an exclusive statement.

After presenting his ID, Ponce was asked to exit his vehicle. Despite repeatedly stating that he was a U.S. citizen, he says the agents did not produce a warrant. Instead, they showed him a photograph of someone they claimed he resembled.

Ponce was handcuffed and held for approximately 90 minutes to two hours, during which time he says he was repeatedly dismissed when insisting they had the wrong person. …

“The agents seemed to think it was a game, telling me that multiple people use my social security number, and when I asked if they could show me proof, they just changed the subject,” Ponce said. “I kept telling them I’m not who they want, they just said, ‘just ’cause you keep saying it doesn’t make it true.'”

American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”
U.S. inches further into fascism as ICE arrests a Texas-born, U.S. citizen, then tell him to “shave your beard”
American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”

USA Today: ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.

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Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

An empty seat.

Martir Garcia Lara’s fourth-grade teacher and classmates went on with the school day in Torrance, California without him on May 29.

About 20 miles north of his fourth grade classroom, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained the boy and his father at their scheduled immigration hearing in Downtown Los Angeles.

The federal immigration enforcement agency, which under President Donald Trump has more aggressively deported undocumented immigrants, separated the young boy and his father for a time and took them to an immigration detention facility in Texas.

Garcia Lara and his father were reunited and deported to Honduras this summer.

Garcia Lara is one of at least five young children and teens who have been rounded up by ICE and deported from the United States with their parents since the start of Trump’s second presidential term. Many won’t return to their school campuses in the fall.

“Martir’s absence rippled beyond the school walls, touching the hearts of neighbors and strangers alike, who united in a shared hope for his safe return,” Sara Myers, a spokesperson for the Torrance Unified School District, told USA TODAY.

Trisha McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said his father Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, illegally entered the United States in 2021 with his son from the Central American country and an immigration judge ordered them to “removed to Honduras” in Sept. 2022.

“They exhausted due process and had no legal remedies left to pursue,” McLaughlin wrote USA TODAY in an email.

The young boy is now in Honduras without his teacher, classmates and a brother who lives in Torrance.

“I was scared to come here,” Lara told a reporter at the California-based news station ABC7 in Spanish. “I want to see my friends again. All of my friends are there. I miss all my friends very much.”

Although no reported ICE deportations have taken place on school grounds, school administrators, teachers and students told USA TODAY that fear lingers for many immigrant students in anticipation of the new school year.

The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement in the United States. A Reuters analysis of ICE and White House data shows the Trump administration has doubled the daily arrest rates compared to the last decade.

Trump recently signed the House and Senate backed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which increases ICE funding by $75 billion to use to enforce immigration policy and arrest, detain and deport immigrants in the United States.

Although Trump has said he wants to remove immigrants from the country who entered illegally and committed violent crimes, many people without criminal records have also been arrested and deported, including school students who have been picked up along with or in lieu of their parents.

Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, says the Trump administration’s immigration agencies are not targeting children in their raids. She called an insinuation that they are “a fake narrative when the truth tells a much different story.”

“In many of these examples, the children’s parents were illegally present in the country – some posing a risk to the communities they were illegally present in – and when they were going to be removed they chose to take their children with them,” Jackson said. “If you have a final deportation order, as many of these illegal immigrant parents did, you have no right to stay in the United States and should immediately self-deport.”

Parents can choose to leave their kids behind if they are arrested, detained and deported from the United States, she said.

Some advocates for immigrants in the United States dispute that claim. National Immigration Project executive director Sirine Shebaya said she’s aware of undocumented immigrant parents were not given the choice to leave their kids behind or opportunity to make arrangement for them to stay in the United States.

In several cases, ICE targeted parents when they attended routine immigration appointments, while traffic stops led to deportations of two high school students. School principals, teachers and classmates say their absence is sharply felt and other students are afraid they could be next.

Very long article, read the rest at the links below:

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/27/ice-student-deportations-trump-school-communities/84190533007

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-deported-teenagers-and-children-in-immigration-raids-here-are-their-stories/ar-AA1JndT7

USA Today: The Trump administration is telling immigrants ‘Carry your papers.’ Here’s what to know.

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Papers, please!

Amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration, the nation’s immigration service is warning immigrants to carry their green card or visa at all times.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted the reminder July 23 on social media: “Always carry your alien registration documentation. Not having these when stopped by federal law enforcement can lead to a misdemeanor and fines.”

Here’s what immigrants – and American citizens – need to know.

‘Carry your papers’ law isn’t new

The law requiring lawful immigrants and foreign visitors to carry their immigration documents has been on the books for decades, dating to the 1950s.

The Immigration and Nationality Act states: “Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him.”

But the law had rarely been imposed before the Trump administration announced earlier this year that it would strictly enforce it.

The “carry your papers” portion fell out of use for cultural and historical reasons, said Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the nonprofit American Immigration Council.

In contrast to the Soviet bloc at the time the requirement was written, “We have never been a country where you have to produce evidence of citizenship on demand from law enforcement.”

In a “Know Your Rights” presentation, the ACLU cautions immigrants over age 18 to follow the law and “carry your papers with you at all times.”

“If you don’t have them,” the ACLU says, “tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.”

A ‘precious’ document at risk

Many immigrants preferred to hold their green card or visa in safe-keeping, because, like a passport, they are expensive and difficult to obtain.

Historically, it was “a little risky for people to carry these precious documents such as green card, because there is a hefty fee to replace it and they are at risk of not having proof of status – a precarious position to be in,” Lapointe said.

But as immigration enforcement has ramped up, the risks of not carrying legal documents have grown.

Failure to comply with the law can result in a $100 fine, or imprisonment of up to 30 days.

Immigration enforcement and ‘racial profiling’

U.S. citizens aren’t required to carry documents that prove their citizenship.

But in an environment of increasing immigration enforcement, Fernando Garcia, executive director of the nonprofit Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said he worries about U.S. citizens being targeted.

“With massive raids and mass deportation, this takes a new dimension,” he said. “How rapidly are we transitioning into a ‘show me your papers’ state?”

“The problem is there are a lot of people – Mexicans, or Central Americans – who are U.S. citizens who don’t have to carry anything, but they have the burden of proof based on racial profiling,” he said. “There are examples of U.S. citizens being arrested already, based on their appearance and their race.”

American citizens targeted by ICE

The Trump administration’s widening immigration crackdown has already netted American citizens.

In July, 18-year-old Kenny Laynez, an American citizen, was detained for six hours by Florida Highway Patrol and Border Patrol agents. He was later released.

Federal agents also detained a California man, Angel Pina, despite his U.S. citizenship in July. He was later released.

Elzon Limus, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen from Long Island, New York, decried his arrest by ICE agents in June, after he was released. In a video of the arrest, immigration agents demand Limus show ID, with one explaining he “looks like somebody we are looking for.”

In updated guidance, attorneys at the firm of Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell, which has offices in Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, advise U.S. who are concerned about being stopped and questioned “to carry a U.S. passport card or a copy of their U.S. passport as evidence of U.S. citizenship.”

“Papers, please!” is so un-American. 🙁

The Trump administration is telling immigrants ‘Carry your papers.’ Here’s what to know.
Immigrants have long been required to carry ID proving they’re in the US legally, but the rule was not enforced. Until now.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/25/carry-your-papers-law-enforcement-immigrants-citizens/85374881007