April 15, 2025

This is America, Now.

From The New York Times:

Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year at Columbia University, was detained by immigration officials on Monday after arriving for an appointment in Vermont that he thought was a step toward becoming a U.S. citizen, his lawyers said.

Hours later, Mr. Mahdawi’s mother, older sister and lawyers were scrambling to find him after his abrupt detention at an immigration center in Colchester, Vt. His lawyers requested a temporary restraining order to prevent federal officials from transferring him to a more conservative jurisdiction — a tactic used in the detention and attempted deportation of at least four other college demonstrators.

A Vermont federal judge, William K. Sessions III, swiftly granted that request, ordering that Mr. Mahdawi, an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, not be removed from the United States or transferred out of Vermont until he orders otherwise. His lawyers said that as of Monday afternoon, they had confirmed that he was still in Vermont.

Oh yea, and there's this:

Mr. Mahdawi has not been accused of a crime. According to his lawyers, the Trump administration appears to be seeking his removal from the country under the same legal provision that it is using to detain another recent Columbia student and Palestinian, Mahmoud Khalil, contending that his presence is a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Immigration officials have argued that pro-Palestinian demonstrators have enabled the spread of antisemitism, but they have not offered evidence to substantiate the claim.
And then there's this from Reuters:

President Donald Trump said on Monday he wants to deport some violent criminals who are U.S. citizens to Salvadoran prisons, a move that experts said would violate U.S. law.
 
Trump's comments marked the clearest signal yet that the U.S. president is serious about deporting naturalized and U.S.-born citizens, a proposal that has alarmed civil rights advocates and is viewed by many legal scholars as unconstitutional.
 
Trump said he would only go through with the idea if his administration determined it was legal. It was not clear what level of due process an American would receive before being deported to a country Washington has previously accused of serious human rights abuses, including harsh and arbitrary detentions. [Emphasis added.]
Yea, we all know what that means. Especially since:
President Donald Trump and his administration refuse to take action to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant wrongly rendered to the Salvadoran prison CECOT, out of El Salvador and back to the United States. In doing so, they are openly defying a Supreme Court order.
This is America now.