The Immigration Trumpstapo Takes Another Step Toward Defiling Due Process
Courthouse stakeouts and arrests are drawing public protest
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detained migrants at courthouses in twenty states, according to family members, attorneys and news reports.
This sweep up operation is part of an effort by the Trump administration to increase the pace of deportations as part of an executive order issued by President Trump in January.
The racism and deception inherent in nearly every aspect of current immigration policy just oozes through in official explanations:
In a statement to The Intercept, ICE said it issued guidance in January permitting its officers to conduct operations near courthouses “discreetly” and that doing so was in the interest of public safety.
“Arrests of illegal aliens in courthouses is safer for law enforcement and the general public because these criminals have gone through security and been verified as unarmed,” ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson said in a statement to The Intercept. “ICE will make thoughtful decisions in each case and do whatever is most likely to keep the American people safe.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the expansion, saying it violates immigrants’ constitutional rights as well as other U.S. laws. They said asylum seekers “would get less due process contesting their deportation than they would contesting a traffic ticket.”
Those detained In Phoenix included, according to Reuters:
..,Geovanni Francisco and his mother from Guerrero, Mexico, who entered the country legally in 2023, after making an appointment using the Biden-era CBP One app, according to his aunt Hilda Ramirez
Thursday in San Diego, for about 90 minutes ICE agents attempted to prevent everyone except those called to appear in court from entering the courthouse. There were reports of agents using physical force to prevent the public and press from entering the courthouse or taking photos and videos. “Security Directive” notices were posted on hallway walls prohibiting recording; these directives did not cite any specific law or legal order and were taken down in the late morning.
Attorneys and advocates were reminded that official zeal concerning rounding up immigrants has encompassed numerous incidents where false, mistaken, or misleading information has been used by authorities.
Eleven people were arrested as they left courtrooms in San Diego on Thursday. They’d entered the building under the assumption their requests for asylum would be heard as part of the due process they’d been told they were entitled to.
Via the Washington Post:
San Diego immigration attorney Michael Hirman, who described himself as a Republican who voted for Trump, was in immigration court this week representing a client who said he had been a military commander in Venezuela. The man fled because he didn’t want to “gun down fellow Venezuelans in the street” and enforce draconian laws handed down by the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro, Hirman said.
The man entered the United States three days before Trump’s inauguration and immediately applied for asylum.
When government attorneys filed a motion to dismiss his client’s case — signaling they would stop their efforts to remove him from the country — Hirman thought that meant the Venezuelan was free to pursue his request for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a less adversarial process than in the courts. It felt like a small victory until about a dozen ICE agents approached them. It was the first time Hirman had ever had a client detained at court that way.
“My client went from hugging his family to being led away in handcuffs,” Hirman said.
The UCSD Guardian reported that witnesses on Friday counted as many a dozen arrests. A reporter for the paper overheard agents from the Department of Homeland Security saying that ICE plans to continue this operation at the San Diego courthouse throughout all of the coming week.
Immigrant Defenders Law Center CEO Lindsay Toczylowski, who was among the first to publicly call attention to the ICE operation, called the arrests a bait and switch.
With some arrests, immigration judges had just dropped active cases against migrants, according to advocates, a move potentially allowing authorities to put them in a fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal.
Via Kate Morrissey at Beyond the Border:
In expedited removal, an immigration officer, rather than a judge, gives the deportation order. In an executive order issued in January, President Donald Trump called for officers to use the process on anyone who has been in the U.S. for less than two years.
“With expedited removal, they can deport them tonight,” said Ginger Jacobs, a private immigration attorney in San Diego. “They're short-cutting the due process these folks came here to receive in immigration court.”
But not everyone detained in San Diego on Thursday had closed cases. ICE arrested several people who had received future hearings dates from the immigration judges they appeared before, according to their attorneys and friends.
In one instance ICE attempted to arrest an individual not listed on a warrant, leading to a medical emergency in the hallway outside a courtroom. The man was eventually released and treated outside by paramedics.
Attorneys and observers began showing up outside courtrooms at the Edward J Schwartz building in San Diego, alerted by activists who have been monitoring the actions of immigration courts and authorities. Later in the morning, people showing up to be witnesses to the ICE arrests were told to wait outside the building as the hallways were already crowded.
Via inewsource:
The scene outside the hallway Thursday was at times tense and chaotic. Attorneys demanded warrants from the federal agents handcuffing their clients while the agents insisted they had authority they needed to make arrests. Activists in the hallway filmed agents as they handcuffed migrants, sometimes questioning agents’ actions or denouncing them.
Twice, federal agents warned those in the hallway that they would arrest anyone interfering or impeding them.
It’s expected that more advocates will be drawn to the San Diego federal courthouse as word of ICE operations has spread.
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Some context here…
The President’s budget bill, currently before the Senate, proposes $160 billion in border/immigration funding for the 4.5 years. Budgets for DHS’s main border and migration enforcement agencies, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be roughly doubled. Many of the multi-billion dollar outlays are vague about how the money will be spent, leaving the Trump administration with very broad flexibility.
The $45 billion slated for adult and family detention would be enough to detain 100,000 people at a time, perhaps more. In April, the New York Times reported ICE had already requested proposals from contractors who run detention facilities. And there’s another $3 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to hold migrant children who arrive unaccompanied.
This proposed budget includes $8 billion to hire 10,000 new ICE personnel; $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, 5,000 CBP Office of Field Operations Officers, 200 new Air and Marine Operations agents, and 290 support staff; $2.05 billion for CBP retention bonuses and signing incentives; $860 million for bonuses to recruit and retain ICE personnel; $600 million for ICE hiring capacity; and $600 million for for CBP recruitment and vetting.
What we’ll end up with will be tens of thousands of armed agents in every corner of society who will be nearly immune from state prosecution or civil suits. The legal and institutional mechanisms by which any of them could be held accountable are almost non-existent, and those existing on the federal level are being erased by the current regime’s Department of Justice.
The infrastructure supporting new jobs/pensions for right-wing unions, will ensure their survival over a long period of time. If the administration’s efforts at cleansing the makeup of the population over the next four years are successful in the least, the Trumpastpo would become a permanent feature of life.
As awful as this all might seem, it’s wrong to blame the current administration alone.
Mass media coverage of the abuses of due process underway in the US has all-too-often been nonchalant, as if the Bill of Rights wasn’t a moral statement about this country. Democrats, in particular high profile ones, have been giving credibility to false assumptions about the criminality of immigrant populations. This ethos, or lack thereof, cannot be brushed aside.
Here’s Alec Karakatsanis, whose book Copaganda examines the role of institutions like the news and academia in the rise of authoritarianism, is a must read:
The core lies shared by Dems, Reps, and NYT are: (1) that greatest threats come from poor people (especially people of color), immigrants, and strangers; (2) that violence is always increasing; (3) that state violence/repression/punishment are the solution to make us safe.
Each is false. Most interpersonal violence is perpetrated by people who know each other, and scope of death/property crime caused by people with money/power dwarfs all other. Interpersonal violence is at historic lows, and evidence is: more repression doesn't make us safe.
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As was true when people protested in and around airports after Trump’s first attempt at a Muslim Ban, this mistreatment of migrants (who are trying to play by the rules!) by ICE needs to be actively resisted. And don’t forget, many of the connections, alliances, and friendships that came out of the airport brigades laid the groundwork for Indivisible and other activist alliances.
We’ll need a bigger and bolder resistance in the months to come; this is an opportunity to build a movement. Don’t pass it by.
A sickening spectacle at West Point by Robin Snyder at WTF is going on with politics?
Meanwhile, moving seamlessly from making a horse’s ass out of himself in front of world leaders to doing it before our own nation’s finest, the 5-time draft dodger who calls people in the military “suckers” and “losers” delivered the commencement address at West Point today. It was as atrocious of a display as we’ve come to expect. In grotesque violation of decorum and protocol, he wore a red MAGA hat, consciously politicizing the event. Then again, Barack Obama wore a tan suit on a random summer workday once so samesies.
The speech itself was an abomination. While there was no talk of duty or honor, since Trump has zero conception of those things, he had a lot of thoughts for the new officers on - *checks notes* - trophy wives. It went on interminably but here’s a snippet: “He had nothing to do. He ended up getting a divorce. Found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say trophy wife. It didn’t work out too well. That doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives. But it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife. He sold his little boat and he got a big yacht.”
Couple of things here: (1) If you look at the video of this, the audience is sitting there dumbfounded, like they should have a giant thought bubble above them containing the letters “WTF?” (2) If Joe Biden had uttered one sentence of this nonsense it would have shut down the freaking country. Ah, but not our boy Trump. The New York Times headline for his speech: “President Stresses New Era in Speech to West Point Graduates.” JFC a new era???? So that’s what they’re calling batshit crazy now???
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They Invented the Game. Will They Be Allowed to Play It in the Olympics? By S.L. Price in the New York Times Magazine (Adapted from ‘’The American Game,‘’ published this month by Atlantic Monthly Press)
When the I.O.C. finally admitted lacrosse to the Games in October 2023, its president, Thomas Bach, noted the game’s place in American history: “This is the sport — if I may say — of the First Nations of the U.S.” Despite that acknowledgment, and the celebratory reaction from Haudenosaunee, days later the I.O.C. stated that its official position was that the Olympic charter prevents Haudenosaunee participation and that its athletes could try out for the United States or Canada teams.
In early December 2023, President Biden addressed hundreds of Indigenous leaders at the White House Tribal Nations Summit. Toward the end of his campaign-style remarks, which centered on his administration’s investment in Indigenous communities, he declared that the Haudenosaunee should be able to compete under their “own tribal flag” in Los Angeles. “Their ancestors invented the game,” Biden said. “They perfected it for a millennia. Their circumstances are unique, and they should be granted an exception to field their own team at the Olympics.” Just hours later, Canada’s sports minister issued a similar call.
Four days before leaving office in January this year, the Biden administration — in a joint statement with Canada — repeated its support for the Haudenosaunee: “While we respect the I.O.C.’s independence, we encourage the I.O.C. to take advantage of this historic opportunity.” The I.O.C. responded with silence. When I contacted the organization the following month, an I.O.C. spokesperson restated its stance: “Only National Olympic Committees (N.O.C.s) recognized by the I.O.C. can enter teams for the Olympic Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter.” Asked for an update in May, an I.O.C. spokesperson told me, “Please note that our position remains the same.”
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Opinion | Safety for Sale: Private Security Reflects a Broken System by Maggie Bowman at The Mississippi Free Press
Real protection is relational, not transactional. It grows from trust, not walls. It requires a commitment to shared responsibility, not just to individual insulation.
We can already see glimpses of a different path. Community-based safety initiatives, violence-interruption teams and public investments in alternative crisis response units show that it is possible to rebuild safety around cooperation rather than fragmentation. Strengthening public institutions, restoring accountability and ensuring equitable access to protection are not just moral imperatives—they are practical necessities for societies that hope to endure.
When safety is treated as a product, the bonds that hold communities together begin to fray. Both ancient wisdom and modern research make clear: True security cannot be hoarded, bought or built behind gates. It must be shared. It must be rooted in trust, nurtured through fair and accountable institutions and made accessible to all.
If we continue down the path of privatized protection and public neglect, the walls we build today will become the ruins we inherit tomorrow...
TY, Doug.